The government will cooperate with the High Prosecutors’ Office investigation into alleged intellectual property theft from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday.
The alleged theft raises national security concerns, and could affect the industry as a whole, leading to losses for local companies, Kung said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting in Taipei.
The ministry would cooperate with prosecutors and explain its control mechanisms for core key technologies to determine whether the incident contravenes the National Security Act (國家安全法), he said.
Photo: CNA
The minister’s remarks followed a report by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) that prosecutors were investigating former TSMC senior vice president Lo Wei-jen (羅唯仁), who retired in July after 21 years at the company, for allegedly stealing the foundry’s most advanced process technologies, including 2-nanometer, 16A and 14A technologies, before reportedly joining Intel Corp last month.
Lo allegedly asked his subordinates before retiring to brief him about the advanced technologies and took the confidential documents with him, the Liberty Times reported.
He took more than 80 boxes of data and books when he departed, raising suspicions at TSMC, the daily said.
Before joining TSMC in 2004, Lo worked at Intel in technology development and management.
TSMC is reportedly collecting evidence in preparation for legal action against Lo.
Prosecutors on Tuesday opened an intellectual property theft investigation into whether Lo contravened the National Security Act and the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法), the report said.
Kung said the ministry would provide TSMC assistance should the company file a trade secret lawsuit against Lo, and would monitor the situation closely to determine whether the incident would harm the nation’s semiconductor ecosystem or affect relations with customers.
Asked about government safeguards to prevent leaks of core technologies, Kung said the ministry has established protection mechanisms and would continue to update the scope of core technologies covered.
The ministry is still investigating whether Lo signed a noncompetition agreement with TSMC, which could prevent him from joining a competing company, Kung said.
Once the situation becomes clear, the ministry would discuss with the Industrial Technology Research Institute about whether to suspend or revoke Lo’s laureate title, which was granted to him in September, he said.
The legislature amended the National Security Act in 2022, tightening regulations on industrial espionage and the leaking of operational secrets, while establishing a list of 32 items classified as national core key technologies.
It is up to TSMC to identify which technologies might have been taken, and the ministry would work with prosecutors to explain whether those technologies correspond to any items on the list, Kung said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS