Manufacturing Know-How as a Trade Secret in China

Know-how is a secret only while the plant cannot lawfully learn it from the product or the public.

Technical information used in manufacture — temperatures, tolerances, suppliers of a critical input, jig drawings, yield tricks — is core AUCL subject-matter when it is not reverse-engineerable at modest cost and is protected on the line. The usual China leak is the OEM, a sub-supplier, or a technician who walks. NNN (non-use, non-disclosure, non-circumvention) is the contract layer; AUCL is the statutory layer. If you already patented the process in a published specification, that part is not a secret.

The classification screen

4 questions before you choose the route.

This page identifies the right question and evidence. It does not determine the legal outcome on a reader’s facts.

Can the product be reverse-engineered cheaply?

If yes, patent or design may be the better right.

Who on the line can see the parameters?

Need-to-know at the actual plant, not only at the trader.

Access

Did the factory that makes it sign an NNN?

A trading-company NDA is the usual hole.

Party

Is any of it already in a published patent?

Those claims are public.

Patent

Working rule: Technical information used in manufacture — temperatures, tolerances, suppliers of a critical input, jig drawings, yield tricks — is core AUCL subject-matter when it is not reverse-engineerable at modest cost and is protected on the line.

What changes the answer

The signal ledger.

These facts move the question beyond a label and into a product, money-flow and control analysis.

Signal

Ask the operating question

Why it changes the route

Trader not plant

Did only the export agent chop the NNN?

The shop floor is not bound.

Same product, new factory

Did a technician move with the drawings?

Classic know-how walk-out.

Published process patent

Did you disclose the recipe to get a patent?

That disclosure is the opposite of a secret.

Prepare before you escalate

Bring a compact evidence docket—not a pitch deck.

Give a compliance team or counsel the operating facts that reveal the perimeter.

01Know-how inventoryWhat parameters are claimed as secret.

02Plant accessWho could see, copy or photograph the line.

03NNN with the factoryThe entity that actually manufactures.

04Product vs secretWhy the sold SKU does not reveal the process.

Common confusions

Questions people ask before they build.

Short answers for orientation. The right result can change with the service model and current rules.

Should we patent or keep it secret?

If reverse engineering is easy, file. If the advantage is a hard-to-see process, secrecy plus NNN may be better. Many programmes split: patent the visible, secret the rest.

When is a more detailed analysis needed?

NNN is the contract. This page is whether the know-how is an AUCL trade secret. Use both.

Primary authorities

Reviewed sources support orientation, not a fact-specific assessment.

National laws database (NPC)

Anti-Unfair Competition Law (gov.cn)

CNIPA

Supreme People’s Court