Q: Zeng lawyer, I heard that the company does not pay the employee confidentiality, the employee after leaving the job there is no duty of confidentiality, you can disclose and use the company's trade secrets, is it so? A: the company's trade secrets is the company's intangible assets, protected by our laws. Employees know or master the company's trade secrets for work reasons, after leaving the company, whether it can disclose or use the company's trade secrets in its possession? Of course not, otherwise it constitutes infringement, labor law theories will still need to conserve the unit after the departure of the employee's obligation to keep trade secrets called post-contractual obligations. Then, why the unit and the staff to sign a confidentiality agreement? This is because the law on the protection of trade secrets is not strong enough, others can be imitated, reverse engineering and other legal ways to obtain the same technology or customer information, without constituting infringement. However, if the unit and the employee signed a confidentiality agreement, in the confidentiality agreement that the employee shall not in any way to obtain or use the trade secrets, the employee shall not be or go to the trade secrets for the purpose of using reverse engineering or other laws do not think that the infringement of trade secrets, or constitute a breach of contract. Out of the principle of reciprocity of rights and obligations, the unit should pay confidentiality, otherwise the effectiveness of the confidentiality agreement will be questioned. In practice, the departure of employees violate the company's trade secrets, the focus of the dispute is not whether the employees have the obligation to keep the company's trade secrets, but the secret is not legally protected "trade secrets", and how to provide evidence to prove that the departure of employees to implement the infringement of copyright infringement and infringement of the losses caused by. Due to trade secret infringement evidence is difficult to receipt, or the cost of investigation and evidence collection is very high, often leading to the unit of infringement of helplessness. If the company and the employee signed a confidentiality agreement, the benefits of confidentiality agreement: (1) can agree to investigate the costs and attorney's fees borne by the defaulter, (2) can be prohibited by agreement that the employee by any means of access to the company's trade secrets and (3) when the loss is uncertain, you can agree on liquidated damages. Confidentiality agreement strengthens the protection of the company's trade secrets, it is recommended that the company and key employees to sign a confidentiality agreement to protect the company's trade secrets. This site reminds ① all information provided by this site, including this article, is for reference only and shall not be used as a legal advice on specific specific matters. It is the reader's responsibility to obtain legal advice from his or her own legal counsel. For specific legal issues or particular facts and circumstances in a dispute, clients and other readers may consult our attorneys.