Data Test: Between Patents and Trade Secrets. Perspectives from the Economic Analysis of Law in the Context of Commercial Integration Processes

The test data protection system as defined in some local jurisdictions and also incorporated in trade integration agreements, raises a question about the kind of rights that such protection systems actually grant or should grant. This question is associated to the definition on whether or not such data should be covered by the guarantees related to trade secrets law or those related to patent law. The rules that currently govern those matters suggest the coexistence of both protection systems and, in that way, and from the perspective of the economic analysis of law, it can be seen that there is an intense accumulation of potentially inefficient costs.