The highest court in Taiwan today gave its final decision in a case where TSMC alleged that one of its ex-employees had leaked its key trade secrets to Samsung.
The accused, former senior director of R&D at TSMC, Liang Mong-Song, became a professor at a “Samsung-sponsored” university in South Korea soon after quitting TSMC in 2011. His students mostly comprised of veteran Samsung employees who were all taught about key trade secrets of TSMC primarily relating to its FinFET process.
These trade secrets helped Samsung in becoming the first foundry to mass produce 14/16nm FinFET based APs (Application Processors), which ultimately led Apple to award it with the majority of the contract to produce A9 chips slated to be used in the upcoming iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Considering that TSMC potentially lost millions of dollars in revenue and profits, the court was expected to heavily fine Samsung and Liang for this. However, the punishment served by the court is nothing short of a joke. It has only prohibited Liang from working with Samsung in any way until December 31, 2015.
So, for robbing TSMC of potentially millions of dollars by leaking their trade secrets to Samsung, Liang has only been prohibited to work with Samsung for four months. The ruling from Taiwan’s highest court does seem partial to Samsung, even though TSMC is one of the biggest companies of the country.
[Via DigiTimes, PatentlyApple]
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