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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] A former employee of Samsung Electronics has been indicted for allegedly leaking internal confidential information to an external party in exchange for nearly USD 1 million, prosecutors said Sunday.
According to the indictment, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Cyber Crime Division on February 2 indicted the former employee, identified only by the surname Kwon, on charges including violations of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (leakage of trade secrets) and breach of trust.
The indictment alleges that in July 2022, Kwon received internal technical analysis materials related to Wi-Fi patents via email from an employee at Samsung Electronics’ intellectual property (IP) center, printed the documents, and showed them to an external individual at a bar in Seoul’s Gangnam district. The recipient was identified as Lim, the head of a patent management company operating as a non-practicing entity (NPE), IdeaHub.
Prosecutors further allege that Kwon repeatedly photographed Samsung Electronics’ internal patent-related confidential materials and sent the images to Lim via email on multiple occasions.
Kwon is accused of accepting USD 999,973 (approximately KRW 1.45 billion) from Lim in exchange for providing internal patent analysis materials to support Lim’s business activities. Investigators also found that while still employed at Samsung Electronics, Kwon secretly established separate NPE entities in South Korea and the United States and used Samsung’s internal analysis materials for business purposes.
NPEs are patent-focused companies that generate profits by selling patents or collecting licensing fees from manufacturers. Given its large revenue base, Samsung Electronics has long been a major target for domestic NPEs.
Prosecutors believe that as a result of the leaked information, IdeaHub was able to enter into licensing agreements worth a total of USD 30 million (approximately KRW 43.4 billion) with Samsung Electronics.
Alphabiz Reporter Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
