Hong Kong Attempts to Steal Korean Handset Technologies

May 21, 2004 - source: Telecoms Korea

Q company in Hong Kong attempt to steal the handset technology illegally from Korean manufacturer.

The computer investigation bureau of Seoul prosecutors' office announced on Wednesday the indictment of eight people including six employees of R&D center of Pantech on the charge of breach of trust.

This investigation was led by the tip from National Intelligence Service on Q company's attempt to illegally obtain the handset technologies.

The targeted handset models are five new GSM handset models developed with R&D investment of 20.6 billion won in 2003, where this technology is believed to reside on 75,000 files.

If this illegal stealing could lead to the launch of identical handset within six months, the technology gap with China could reduce from two-three years to 6 months. Pantech estimated the leakage would lead to an export reduction of 4.5 trillion won for three years with 1.5 trillion per year.

The executive of Q company instructed ex-employees of Pantech an illegal technology transfer with job offer and incentive payment ranging 50 million won and 120 million won. Pantech ex-employees involved in this incident left the company after copying the relevant files to external hard disk.

(£1 = 1,823.69 won)