The Swedish Parliament has adopted a new Act introducing enhanced criminal law protection for technical trade secrets. From 1 January 2026, it will be a criminal offence to unlawfully exploit or disclose technical trade secrets, even where the individual concerned had lawful access to the information, for example through their employment.
The Act significantly strengthens the protection of technical trade secrets. Individuals who have had legitimate access to sensitive technical information – such as employees or consultants – may now be held criminally liable if they misuse or disclose that information without authorisation. The purpose of the Act is to better safeguard technical knowledge that is critical to innovation, industrial development and industrial competitiveness.
A more comprehensive framework for protecting trade secrets
The new law criminalises the unauthorised use or disclosure of technical trade secrets. The term technical trade secrets include, for example:
- research and development results
- technical drawings and specifications
- internal processes or methods
- technical know-how
The new criminal liability complements the existing Swedish Trade Secrets Act and contributes to a more comprehensive legal framework for protecting companies’ critical technical information.
What does the new law mean for businesses?
For both small and large companies, the new law provides a clearer and stronger legal tool for protecting valuable internal knowledge. In practice, this entails:
- improved opportunities to take legal action in cases of leakage or misuse of technical information
- a strengthened competitive position, particularly for technology-driven businesses
- increased requirements for internal procedures, such as documenting what constitutes a trade secret and ensuring clear confidentiality arrangements with employees and external partners
To benefit from the protection offered by the Act, however, companies must continue to actively manage their information and be able to demonstrate that it qualifies as a trade secret.
An important addition to intellectual property protection
The Act does not replace traditional intellectual property rights – such as patents, trade marks, designs or copyright – but complements them by protecting technical knowledge that companies choose not to disclose or register.
This strengthens the overall system of intellectual property protection and improves the conditions for innovation, particularly in industries where development work and know-how are key assets.
Groth & Co’s perspective
At Groth & Co, we continuously deepen our expertise in trade secrets and data access – two areas that are closely linked in practice. Technical data often falls within the legal definition of technical trade secrets, but companies also hold significant volumes of other sensitive information worthy of protection, such as customer data, commercial information and agreements with suppliers and customers.
Christian Hafner, Head of Patents at Groth & Co, emphasises the importance of identifying and categorising this information and then protecting it through concrete measures such as access controls, logging and clearly defined internal procedures, in close cooperation with IT departments.
“The Act only provides protection if the company has actually taken steps to keep the information confidential. A document that is openly accessible to everyone can hardly be considered a trade secret,” says Christian Hafner, Head of Patents at Groth & Co.
Summary
The new Act marks an important step towards stronger protection of technical trade secrets in Sweden, and it is encouraging to see that misconduct now carries clear consequences. For businesses, this means both enhanced opportunities to protect their operations and an increased need for well-defined internal processes for handling sensitive information.
Please contact us if you require practical or strategic support in relation to trade secrets – not only technical trade secrets, but also other forms of sensitive business information.
