Taiwan-based IC designer -MediaTek Inc (聯發科) said yesterday it would appeal against the sentence a former employee received for leaking trade secrets to a competitor.
In a verdict issued on Monday, the Taipei District Court sentenced a former MediaTek employee surnamed Yang to nine months in prison for leaking information to a MediaTek competitor. The sentence can be commuted to a fine of NT$270,000.
MediaTek said it would file an appeal because the ruling was too lenient and would encourage further violations of laws protecting trade secrets in the future, -potentially -setting off a cycle of vicious -competition within the sector.
In the case MediaTek had brought against Yang, the former employee was accused of illegally leaking the company’s trade secrets to rival MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體) in 2007, when he left MediaTek to work for MStar.
According to MediaTek, Yang, who was on MediaTek’s payroll between November 2005 and April 2007 before starting work at MStar in May 2007, collected confidential business information from MediaTek just before he left the company.
After Yang was employed by MStar, he used the secrets contained in his notebook computer on the job and also presented it in a briefing for MStar executives, MediaTek alleged.
Upset by the ruling, the company said confidential business information is an IC designer’s most important intangible asset, and if the law could not adequately protect companies’ trade secrets and other intellectual property, the sector’s survival would be threatened.
It also argued that the impact of the court decision would be felt not only by high-tech businesses, but also by the domestic economy across the board.
In a recent report released by IC Insights, MStar was expected to rank as the 13th-largest fabless IC provider in the world last year in terms of sales, while MediaTek was likely to rank fourth.
Meanwhile, Citigroup said in a client note on Tuesday that it had lowered its earnings forecasts for MediaTek this year and next year by 15 percent and 24 percent respectively, to reflect slower whitebox market growth and fiercer price competition.
“The market is now excited about MediaTek launching an Android phone chipset with a reference price of about US$100. Without a subsidy, US$100 is too expensive for the vast majority of whitebox handset customers, who normally pay below US$40 for whitebox handsets,” Kevin Chang (張凱偉) wrote in the note.
With severe price pressure from China’s Spreadtrum Communications Inc (展訊), Citigroup expects MediaTek’s baseband average selling price to decline another 25 percent this year from last year, the note said.
The brokerage also cut its target price for MediaTek to NT$243, from the NT$284 it set previously. Shares of MediaTek edged up 0.48 percent to NT$420 yesterday in Taipei trading.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KEVIN CHEN
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last