Protecting Technology in Korea through Filing a Criminal Suit Against an IP Violator

The following case demonstrates that companies doing business in Korea can help protect intellectual property in Korea by aggressively defending intellectual property rights through Korean courts. For an article on pragmatic approaches to protecting your IP under Korean Law, please see: How to Protect Your Intellectual Property in Korea.

Protecting Trade Secrets in Korea:
Filing Criminal Charges Against IP Violators

The Korean Supreme Court upheld the sentence of the vice president of a SK Hynix partner company who leaked key SK Hynix core semiconductor technology and equipment drawings to a Chinese company.

Supreme Court’s SK Hynix Trade Secret Decision

The Supreme Court of Korea confirmed the sentence of one year and six months in prison for the Vice President of Mujin Electronic for violation of Korea’s Act on the Prevention of Leakage and Protection of Industrial Technology (2024do17294) and a KRW 1 billion fine. Additionally, the Korean Supreme Court confirmed the sentence of other employees, including Mujin Electronic’s head of research and the head of the mechanical design group.

The Korean Supreme Court opined and upheld the lower Korean court decison noting that: “there was no error in the original judgment that went beyond the limits of the principle of free judgment by violating the rules of logic and experience, nor did it misunderstand the legal principles regarding joint criminal conspiracy, the legality and evidentiary ability of search and seizure procedures, and trade secrets as defined in the Act on Prevention of Unfair Competition and Protection of Trade Secrets.”

Facts

1. The Court of First Instance sentenced the Vice President to one year in prison. The appeals court upped the sentence to one year and six months in prison for the Vice President.
2. The three other employees who were sentenced to suspended prison sentences in the first trial sentence were increased to between one year and one year and six months in prison in the appeal trial.
3. Another employee who was found not guilty in the first trial was sentenced to eight months in prison and two years of probation in the appeal.
4. Mujin Electronics was sentenced to a fine of 400 million won in the first trial. The fine was increased to 1 billion won in the appeal trial.

Sean Hayes is the first non-Korean attorney to have worked for the Korean court system (Constitutional Court of Korea) and one of the first non-Koreans to be a regular member of a Korean law faculty. Sean is ranked, for Korea, as one of only two non-Korean lawyers as a Top Attorney by AsiaLaw, and IPG Legal is consistently ranked Top Dispute Resolution Law for our litigation services.

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