VIA executives reported indicted over IP theft

Two executives of VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子), the world's second-largest maker of chipsets for personal computers, have been charged with industrial espionage, copyright violations and breach of trust, local media reported yesterday.

On Friday the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office indicted VIA chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) and her husband Chen Wen-chi (陳文琦), president of the company, for the alleged theft of technology from one of their client-competitors, D-Link Corp (友訊科技), the reports said.

Prosecutors four-year jail terms for both Wang and Chen, who were accused of bribing an executive, Chang Chih-hao (張至皓), to facilitate the theft of an integrated-circuit (IC) chip simulation-based test program developed by rival D-Link.

A three-year sentence was also recommended for Chang if he was convicted of working for Wang and Chen to steal D-Link's secrets.

According to media reports, Wang and Chen allegedly instructed Chang, who had worked as a marketing manager at VIA since 1995, to join D-Link's software-development department in 2000 and re-produce the program for VIA's use after coming back to his former employer in 2001.

Wang Chen allegedly paid Chang an extra bonus of some NT$1.5 million when he left the company on a paycheck of NT$1.22 million in total, the report added.

Chen dismissed the accusation, denying playing any role in the alleged industrial espionage.

Downplaying allegation to be a misunderstanding, Chen told Era News yesterday that "a lot of family and company employees are innocent."

VIA, a leading chipmaker with US$720 million in revenues last year, argued that D-Link had played up the event from an employee's making a career choice to groundless allegations of corporate espionage.

Wang, 44, the daughter of business tycoon Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), chairman of the Formosa Group (台塑), is currently abroad and was not available for comment yesterday