▲ Seoul High Court
A former employee of SK Hynix indicted for leaking trade secrets to a Chinese company while attempting to switch jobs has received a prison sentence in the second trial as well.
The 10-1 Criminal Division of the Seoul High Court recently sentenced a former employee surnamed Kim to one year and six months in prison, upholding the sentence from the first trial, on charges including violations of the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology, the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act, and breach of trust under duties.
Kim is accused of unauthorized leakage, misuse, and disclosure of advanced technology and trade secrets related to CMOS image sensors (CIS) from SK Hynix's local subsidiary in China in 2022.
Investigations revealed that Kim committed the offenses after receiving job offers from companies such as HiSilicon, a subsidiary of China's largest telecommunications equipment maker Huawei.
It was found that Kim printed out trade secret documents or took photos using the company's internal document management system to use in drafting a resume, and even cited some of the confidential material directly in the resume to disclose it to the Chinese firm.
The first-trial court found Kim guilty of leaking trade secrets and handed down a prison sentence.
However, the charge of leaking materials related to hybrid bonding, a technology required to implement High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence, was ruled not guilty.
The second-trial court rebuked, saying, "These trade secrets are the fruits of the victim company's long-term investment of massive resources. Treating infringement crimes lightly would strip corporations of the motivation to strive for technological development, and it would prevent foreign competitors from easily hijacking the technological capabilities built through strenuous efforts by domestic companies under the pretext of recruiting talent."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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