Untitled

Abstract

The events of recent years, including the Russian Federation's aggression, China's intellectual property (IP) violations, and production localization fostered by the COVID-19 pandemic, have created a new global era in the field of IP enforcement and international trade relations. Russia has openly declared its intention to violate IP belonging to "unfriendly countries" (Western countries). This raises the issue of whether the existing patent system can handle these challenges. Namely, patenting involves the publication of an invention, which makes its misappropriation easy. The trends described above require specific adaptions for Western countries, as a result of which the author argues that the role of trade secret protection has become more prominent. However, assessing the suitability of trade secret protection in this changed environment is critical. Therefore, this article aims to first evaluate the current system of protecting trade secrets and then make suggestions to improve it.