Located in the heart of Europe, Belgium is a true hub of logistics and innovation. It is for example home to one of Europe’s largest sea ports (with all the warehousing infrastructure that one would expect). Belgium also hosts several, globally leading biotech and life sciences clusters. It is no coincidence for example that pharma giant Pfizer has one of its largest production and packaging sites in Puurs, a small Belgian town, where it produces its Covid-19 vaccine. A few miles north, Jansen Pharmaceuticals has its HQ.
Such hubs are not just rich in talented human resources, but also in cutting edge and highly valuable know-how. A high concentration of know-how, combined with the increased mobility of employees, means a high(er) risk of misappropriation of this valuable information by unauthorized (third) parties. When a (foreign) company suspects its know-how has been misappropriated in Belgium, it will need evidence to substantiate this allegation in court. If the know-how is (also) covered by an intellectual property (IP) right, the holder of the know-how has access to a very efficient means of collecting evidence: the descriptive counterfeit seizure whereby discovery-like evidentiary measures will be granted ex parte. When the misappropriated know-how is only protected as a trade secret, no similar measures are provided for under EU law. The Belgian judges have therefore in the past not been very eager to grant trade secret holders access to ex parte evidence-gathering. With a recent judgment, however, the Brussels Court of Appeal has left the door behind which discovery-like measures are stored for holders of trade secrets open.Continue Reading Gathering evidence of trade secret infringement in Belgium: towards discovery-like measures?