On January 5th, according to Taiwanese media reports, a past internal employee leakage case occurred at the leading chip manufacturer TSMC, which has now been exposed. Both parties ultimately settled the matter through reconciliation.
According to the indictment, at the end of 2020, Ms. Chen served as the Deputy Manager of Technology in the Manufacturing Technology Development Department at TSMC, responsible for researching and developing the expert system project for photolithography engineering production management tasks. She accumulated crucial confidential information, including opportunities for equipment development, improving equipment efficiency, and pioneering advanced processes.
These process-related critical technologies are protected under TSMC’s confidentiality regulations. They are inaccessible to unrelated business needs, and disclosure to others is strictly prohibited without TSMC’s consent. The unauthorized removal of such information from the company constitutes TSMC’s trade secrets.
However, despite knowing TSMC’s requirements and regulations for protecting trade secrets, Ms. Chen uploaded the acquired trade secrets to her cloud storage in January 2021. She even created a spider web-like diagram illustrating these trade secrets and granted access to a male friend surnamed Lin. Subsequently, she transmitted this information via a private email to Mr. Lin, who further disseminated it through email. The prosecution accused her of unjustifiably disclosing trade secrets under the Criminal Code.
Recently, after the case was transferred to the Hsinchu District Court, Ms. Chen and TSMC settled during the trial. TSMC withdrew the lawsuit, resulting in the judge’s final decision to not accept the public prosecution of the entire case.
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