Data Disputes Surged 25.6% in a Year — Your Non-Compete Agreement May Be Unenforceable

In April 2026, the Supreme People's Court issued the Implementation Plan for Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights by People's Courts (2026–2030) (Fa Fa [2026] No. 4), drawing a five-year roadmap for IP adjudication. One set of figures from the same press conference deserves attention: in 2025, Chinese courts accepted 552,600 IP cases nationwide, of which 908 involved data ownership and transaction disputes — a 25.6% jump in a single year. For companies, the most valuable part of this document is not the text itself but the two "decision lines" it draws: which category your data assets fall into, and whether the non-compete agreement in your drawer is actually enforceable.

The author is He Zigang, an intellectual property lawyer with 20 years of practice, operating three entities — Aipunajie, Mili and Naje — under the OPC + AI digital employee model. We manage foreign-related annuity and maintenance fees, so "how data is held, processed and characterized" is our daily work — and this document happens to hit the two areas companies have been most careless about.

I. Three Signals Companies Can Feel

Stripping away the official language, three signals in the Plan directly concern enterprises:

1. Data rights and interests: accurately define the scope and intensity of protection for public data, enterprise data and personal information data.

2. Non-compete restrictions: properly determine the validity of non-compete clauses, balancing trade secret protection with the reasonable mobility of talent.

3. Derivative creation: refine the judicial rules for "derivative creation" to guide the cultural and creative industry to develop within the legal framework.

The first two are the two self-check tables in this article. The third is reserved for our next piece.

II. Table One: Which Category Do Your Data Assets Fall Into?

Data is not a monolith. In the eyes of the courts, data falls into three categories:

Why must you classify your data now? Three developments are pushing this forward:

• The DataTang case (the nation's first case recognizing the validity of a data intellectual property registration certificate): the certificate can serve as prima facie evidence of property-like interests in data and lawful source; the court awarded RMB 100,000 in damages.
• The new data provision — Article 13(3) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (effective October 15, 2025): no one may obtain another party's data by fraud, coercion, destruction of technical measures, or other unfair means.
• Data capitalization and pledge: the PBOC's centralized registration platform (CCDC) has launched "data asset pledge" registration; a Shenzhen company obtained a RMB 10 million loan against its data IP, and Longhua Drainage Company pledged its river monitoring dataset to finance RMB 60 million.

Four steps any company can take immediately:

1. Inventory: make a list of every data set you hold;

2. Classify: assess item by item whether it is public, contains personal information, or is an original compilation;

3. Register: register the registrable data as data IP as soon as possible;

4. Document: keep evidence of how your data was collected and processed — this is the shield proving "lawful source".

III. Table Two: Is Your Non-Compete Agreement Enforceable?

The Plan's phrase "properly determine the validity of non-compete clauses" is not mere politeness. Stacked on top of Article 13 of the Judicial Interpretation (II) on Labor Disputes (effective 2025) and the MOHRSS Compliance Guidelines on Non-Compete Restrictions, the "gold content" of non-compete agreements is being re-weighed.

Five-question self-assessment — how many hurdles does your non-compete agreement pass?

1. Did this person actually have access to trade secrets? — If not, the clause can be directly confirmed as ineffective.

2. Do the scope, territory and duration fit? — If disproportionate, the part exceeding a reasonable ratio is void; the court's "blue pencil" will strike it out.

3. Does the term exceed 2 years? — The excess portion is void.

4. Is compensation adequate? — In Beijing the benchmark is approximately 30% of the average monthly salary before departure.

5. Is there a less restrictive alternative? — Confidentiality grace periods and access control come first; non-compete restrictions are the last resort.

One precedent is highly instructive: a livestreaming lecturer's non-compete restriction was struck down because he broadcast to the general public, which contradicts "secrecy". In other words, companies that treat non-compete agreements as "standard-issue for all employees" are losing legal protection in bulk.

Three actions for HR and business owners:

1. Cut first: only have people who truly touch trade secrets sign;

2. Then calibrate: align scope, territory and duration with what the role actually touches;

3. Then reinforce: put confidentiality grace periods and access control in place first; the non-compete agreement comes last.

IV. The Mili Perspective: Both Lines Are, at Bottom, a Question of "Boundaries"

Data disputes and non-compete disputes look like two fields but share one word at the core — boundaries. The intensity of data protection depends on which category you assign it to; the validity of a non-compete clause depends on whether it is "necessary and proportionate".

【Enterprise data assets and non-compete restrictions have both entered a window of "classify first, self-assess second": data must be confirmed in rights; non-competes must be calibrated precisely.】—— He Zigang | IP Lawyer | Aipunajie · Mili · Naje

Companies used to prefer "big and comprehensive": treat all data as trade secrets and have every employee sign a non-compete. The judiciary is now moving in the opposite direction — protection by category for data, enforceability by person for non-competes. The sooner you classify and self-assess, the more disputes you avoid and the sooner you can truly "activate" your data assets.

V. Three Things You Can Do Today

1. Spend half an hour turning your company's data sets into a table and classify each item;

2. Take out your existing non-compete agreements and run them through the "five questions" above;

3. If you are unsure how to classify your data or calibrate your non-compete, leave a comment below.

Next article: the third signal in the Plan — derivative creation: can the business of "watching a movie in 3 minutes" survive?

Follow the WeChat official account「纳杰觅理」and leave a comment — together, let's translate judicial documents into enterprise action.

He Zigang | Intellectual Property Lawyer | Aipunajie · Mili · Naje

This article reflects the author's personal views only and does not constitute legal advice. For case-specific analysis, please leave a comment.