Problematic Aspects of the Protection of the Exclusive Right to Know-How

The research work is devoted to the problematic aspects of protecting the exclusive right to know-how arising from both the substantive and procedural legal aspects due to the gaps in Russian legislation in the field of intellectual property on issues related to the legal guard and protection of know-how, lack of clarification higher courts on issues of protection of the exclusive right to a given object of intellectual property, the presence of non-uniform judicial practice on issues arising in the process of protecting the exclusive right to know-how. The research work seems relevant because know-how has a number of advantages compared to other objects of intellectual property, and therefore they become key assets of many companies. However, due to the reasons discussed in the research work there are no effective strategies for the legal guard of know-how and the protection of violated exclusive rights, as a result of which copyright holders suffer losses, lose innovative potential and competitiveness or completely lose the exclusive right to know-how. In the course of writing the research work, the author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to amend the current Russian legislation in the field of intellectual property, to supplement the explanations of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated April 23, 2019 No. 10 “On the application of part four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation” on issues of legal guard know-how and protection of the exclusive right to it, and also describes recommendations for right holders who apply for protection of the exclusive right to know-how, allowing them to increase their chances of a positive outcome in proceedings for violation of the exclusive right to know-how.