◀ Anchor ▶
Six former employees and ex-employees of large and medium-sized companies were handed over for trial on charges of leaking national core technology related to semiconductors to China.
Among the three affected companies, the smallest suffered more than 100 billion won.
Reporter Kim Tae-wook reports.
◀ Report ▶
The judicial police of the Korean Intellectual Property Office are conducting a search and seizure of the house of a researcher accused of transferring core semiconductor technology to China.
[특허청 기술사법경찰]
“A mobile phone, then a piece of paper with account numbers and a mobile phone…”
Six former and current employees of large and medium-sized domestic companies, including Lee, are accused of stealing semiconductor wafer polishing process diagrams to China.
It is a national core technology that can be punished if leaked abroad.
[김시형/특허청 산업재산보호협력국장]
“Our intelligence was informed that the behavior of two or three people in China was suspicious…”
The main offender, an employee of a large company, promised a secret partnership with a Chinese company in 2019 when he failed to be promoted to executive officers.
This employee continued to visit the company, pulling technology from the internal network, and managed the business by setting up abrasive production facilities in China using Messenger.
Three researchers were recruited from other companies and transferred to Chinese companies.
These gangs are known to have tried to leak core semiconductor technologies to Chinese companies in exchange for two or three times the annual salary received in Korea.
It is estimated that the loss of technology spillovers alone exceeds 100 billion won for the smallest companies.
Over the past five years, there have been 112 cases of technology leaks abroad, and the amount of damage is more than KRW 26 trillion, of which 36 were national core technologies.
Most of the technology has been leaked to China.
[안기현/한국반도체산업협회 전무]
“The more companies that focus on technology, the earlier they retire. A system that allows these people to take the experience they have and use it elsewhere (domestic). Wouldn’t we need a system like this…”
The Korean Intellectual Property Office plans to provide opportunities for the re-employment of patent examiners to prevent the leakage of excellent semiconductor personnel, while requesting an increase in the punishment for technology leakage crimes such as courts.
This is Kim Tae-wook from MBC News.
Video feature: Jang Woo-chang (Daejeon) / Video courtesy: Korea Intellectual Property Office
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