It seems like there's been some industrial espionage going on in the flash memory industry recently. A report on Reuters today reveals that partners Toshiba and SanDisk have both filed lawsuits against SK Hynix. The accusers say that Hynix has acquired information related to their flagship flash memory chip technology by improper means.
Toshiba and SanDisk jointly manufacture NAND flash at a fabrication plant in Yokkaichi, Japan. It is alleged that Hynix "solicited" an engineer who worked at the joint manufacturing plant to steal the trade secrets and come and work at Hynix. The engineer worked at Hynix from July 2008 until June 2011.
The timeline of the case is as follows:
- On Thursday Tokyo police arrested a former SanDisk engineer, Yoshitaka Sugita, who had moved to work at SK Hynix back in 2008. The engineer is suspected of "improperly providing technical data," to his new company. It sounds like he quit SanDisk and took a 'five-fingered bonus' of the trade secrets kind. He is now said to be cooperating with the authorities.
- Today both Toshiba and SanDisk revealed that they have filed civil lawsuits against South Korea's SK Hynix. In Tokyo Toshiba filed with the local District Court citing estimated losses of at least US$980 million due to the leaked technical information. The case will be considered under Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Act. In the Santa Clara Superior Court SanDisk filed its suit against Hynix under California's Uniform Trade Secret Act. We don't have a figure for the sum sought in the US case.
Reuters points out that flash memory chip technology is "a key source of profit for Toshiba," as it is for SanDisk we would think. A previous case, back in 2004, was brought by Toshiba against Hynix for breaches in its flash memory patents. That case resulted in Hynix settling out of court and signing up to a cross-licensing agreement.
