Recently, the second-instance final judgment for the Genshin Impact offline test trade secret infringement case was announced. The court rejected tester Jin's appeal, upheld the first-instance verdict, confirmed his infringement of MiHoYo's trade secrets, and ordered him to cease infringement and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 500,000 RMB.
The case originated from MiHoYo's legal patrol, which discovered images related to undisclosed characters, items, and events from Genshin Impact Version 4.4 appearing online. The content was attributed to the overseas Telegram group "Chalice_Leaks," which has since been shut down.
Investigation confirmed that the source of the leak was Jin, who participated in the offline test as an invitee. Despite signing an NDA explicitly prohibiting copying, saving, or disclosing test content, he unauthorizedly used his phone to photograph undisclosed game content during the test. He sent these stolen photos to "Oaemin," the administrator of the overseas channel. After being published on the channel, the content spread widely across the internet, causing key R&D content to be leaked.
Furthermore, Zhai, the controller of the overseas account, repeatedly induced and instigated Jin to purchase equipment for covert photography. He even encouraged Jin to leak confidential information from memory. Zhai also processed the stolen photos of the undisclosed character "Fujin" sent by Jin using AI before publishing them, attempting to evade investigation and accountability.
Currently, litigation against Zhai is being handled in a separate case.
The court of first instance determined that the undisclosed information leaked by Jin constituted MiHoYo's trade secrets. His actions of obtaining and disclosing these trade secrets through improper means constituted infringement.
During the second-instance trial, the court found chat records between Jin and Zhai mentioning phrases like "signed the contract, 500k," which sufficiently proved Jin's awareness of the consequences. Therefore, the court accepted the compensation amount awarded in the first instance, ultimately rejecting the appeal and upholding the original verdict.
MiHoYo's Legal Department stated that offline tests are an in-depth dialogue between the development team and players. Participation is contingent upon signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This trust should not be betrayed. Any form of leaking test content violates confidentiality obligations and will result in corresponding legal consequences.
Meanwhile, recruitment and instigation activities by operators of overseas leak channels will also be severely punished. Cross-border dissemination is not a shield against liability. MiHoYo retains complete technical tracing and legal prosecution capabilities and will continue to safeguard game trade secrets and legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law. Players are welcome to provide clues via the reporting email to jointly maintain a healthy and orderly game creation environment.
