This signature is arguably one of the most remarkable reactions by world leaders to global protectionist trends observed since 2016. RCEP negotiations began in 2012 with 16 countries, including the 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Even with India`s eventual withdrawal in 2019, the agreement remains the largest in the world and accounts for 30% of global GDP and 27% of global merchandise trade (Figure 1). Rcep also covers more than 18% of trade in services and 19% of foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows. Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, motives or compilations of information that have intrinsic economic value because they are not known to all or are not easily identifiable to others and that the owner makes reasonable to keep them secret. [1] In some legal systems, these secrets are referred to as confidential information. Since a company can protect its confidential information through non-compete, labour and non-competition clauses with its stakeholders (within the framework of restrictions imposed by labour law, including geographical and temporal restrictions), these contractual guarantees effectively create a perpetual monopoly on secret information that does not take place as a patent or copyright. However, the lack of formal protection related to registered intellectual property rights means that a third party who is not bound by a signed agreement is not prevented from duplicating and using secret information independently once it has been discovered, for example. B by reverse engineering.

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