China officially kicked off pilot work on trade secret protection across the country and aims to benchmark its protection standards with international rules, according to a latest conference on Thursday.

A trade secret is confidential information that provides a business with a competitive edge and is not known to the public. Unlike a patent, trade secrets do not need to be publicly registered and they can be an algorithm or even a sales strategy.

In a conference led by the State Administration for Market Regulation, the regulator said China will set up a series of innovation bases on trade secret protection.

Though the number of bases remains undisclosed, officials from 20 such bases nationwide presented their remarks in the conference, indicating that the first batch of trade secret protection work will be carried out in at least 20 cities and regions.

Gan Lin, deputy minister of the market regulator, and Wang Wenxu, vice-governor of Zhejiang province, attended the conference. Gan also visited Zhejiang Intellectual Property Innovation Industrial Park.