According to media reports, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. has filed a lawsuit against WM Motor Automotive Technology Group Co., Ltd. and its four subsidiaries for infringement of trade secret disputes, and it probably will officially open acourt session on September . As mentioned in The White Paper on theJudicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights of Chinese Courts in 2018, the litigation target of the two groups amounted up to 2.1 billion RMB, which probably is one of the highest claims for intellectual property disputes in China’s auto industry. 

      Trade Secrets refer totechnical information and business information that are not known to the public, can bring economic benefits to the right holder, are practical and are subject to confidentiality measures by the right holder; such as core customer information, merchant sales, employee compensation, etc. Trade Secrets are the property rights of enterprises, which are related to the enterprises’ competitiveness and are crucial to the enterprises’ development .

      In recent years, more and more automobile enterprises have been gradually paying attention to the protection of intellectual property rights and trade secrets in the fierce competition of the automotive industry. In addition to the cases involving Jaguar Land Rover’s lawsuit against LANDWIND and Great Wall suing Fiat Group for design patents, there are cases in which Xiaopeng’s auto engineers are suspected of stealing confidential database information .