Published
May 18, 2026
Trade secrets are the backbone of innovation in today’s data‑driven economy. From clinical trial data to manufacturing processes to commercial know-how, these intangible assets are often a company’s most valuable—and vulnerable—property.
The results: The 2026 U.S. Chamber International IP Index reveals that trade secrets protection remains one of the weakest areas of IP policy worldwide.
- Trade Secrets and the Protection of Confidential Information is the lowest‑scoring Index category overall, with an average score of just 48.67%, down slightly from last year.
- Only 16 of the 55 economies benchmarked achieved at least 75% of the available score, while 22 economies scored 33% or less.
Legislative gaps: A core challenge is the absence of dedicated trade secret legislation. Many economies do not have clear statutory frameworks defining trade secrets, outlining misappropriation, and providing meaningful remedies. Even where civil remedies exist, courts often lack experience handling trade secret cases, and criminal sanctions for theft or misuse remain rare.
RDP challenges abound: Regulatory data protection (RDP) safeguards the confidential clinical test data submitted to regulators for marketing approval, helping ensure that innovators can recoup the substantial investments required to bring new medicines to market. Yet, many economies provide no RDP at all, and others limit its practical availability through carve‑outs or restrictive conditions. Recently, economies that have traditionally been global leaders in IP protection have taken steps to weaken their IP framework.
- The European Union recently finalized new General Pharmaceutical Legislation which reduces the EU’s RDP term by one year.
- The legislation conditions the restoration of lost RDP on criteria such as conducting clinical trials in multiple EU Member States or seeking marketing authorization in the EU within 90 days of first global submission.
These changes matter because a decrease in RDP not only jeopardizes the EU’s life sciences investment environment and broader competitiveness goals. It also risks normalizing a weakening of IP standards globally, creating a renewed sense of urgency for policymakers to act to preserve the existing framework.
The bottom line: As global competition accelerates, weak trade secrets and regulatory data protection carries lasting consequences. Economies that fail to modernize their legal frameworks, enforce misappropriation rules, or safeguard confidential regulatory data risk driving investment, R&D, and high‑value jobs elsewhere. The 2026 IP Index sends a clear warning: economies that do not appropriately protect trade secrets will struggle to compete, innovate, and lead in the decades ahead.
About the author
Kelly Anderson
Kelly Anderson serves as vice president of international policy at the U.S. Chamber’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC). Anderson oversees the GIPC’s global advocacy efforts and leads the GIPC’s policy engagement in the multilateral organizations and developed economies.
