Implementation of the Trade Secrets Directive into National Law: Portugal and Spain 

The protection of trade secrets in Portugal and Spain has been derived from general legal principles (of Civil Law, Penal Law and Unfair Marketing Law). This chapter on implementation of the Trade Secrets Directive (TS Directive) in Portugal and Spain presents the traditional views and positions and the implementation of the TS Directive into the respective national legal orders.
In Portugal, implementation of the TS Directive was part of a broader intellectual property (IP) legislative reform package. This reform entailed the approval of a new Industrial Property Code transposing both the TS Directive and the new Trade Mark Directive; and that also modified procedural norms relating to the competence of the IP court and new rules on IP arbitration. In Spain, implementation has been made by specific TS legislation – The Law on Trade Secrets, approved in December 2019.
The chapter contains an introduction (section 1), and overview of the pre-directive frameworks (Section 2), the post-directive national TS legislation (section 3), expected post-implementation legal developments (section 4); and the main conclusions of our analysis.