Man jailed for 3 years for leaking Samsung’s edge panel technology

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Sol. South Korea’s top court on Thursday sentenced a man to three years in prison for leaking Samsung Display’s edge panel technology to Chinese companies in 2018. The accused is not an ordinary person but a former head of a tech firm.

Edge panel technology, also known as 3D lamination technology, is used to create the curved screen edge, reports Yonhap news agency. Samsung had to invest about $117.7 million in developing this technology and 38 engineers did research for six years.

A former CEO and executives at Toptec, a company that specializes in production devices, received edge panel technology from Samsung in April 2018. The person was convicted on charges of leaking related technical specifications and technology images to a different company. It was also alleged that the person had also sold some part of the documents to two Chinese companies.

The individual was also accused of attempting to produce 24 units of 3D lamination production equipment based on technical drawings provided by Samsung, exporting 16 of them to Chinese companies and selling the rest.

A district court initially found the former TopTech CEO and executives not guilty. The court had said that the leaked technology is not a business secret. But an appeals court overturned the verdict and sentenced the former CEO to three years in prison. The Court reasoned that technology cannot be considered to be in the public domain.

The apex court upheld the three-year imprisonment of the former CEO of Toptech. Two other Toptec executives were also given a final two-year prison sentence, while the company was fined 100 million won.

(IANS)

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