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Cellphones China Crime Displays The Courts Technology

Samsung's Foldable Screen Tech Has Been Stolen, Sold To China (cnn.com) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the lost-and-found dept.
Prosecutors in South Korea say that Samsung's latest bendable screen technology has been stolen and sold to two Chinese companies. "The prosecutors allege that a Samsung supplier leaked blueprints of Samsung's 'flexible OLED edge panel 3D lamination' to a company that it had set up," reports CNN. "That company then sold the tech secrets to the Chinese firms for nearly $14 million, according to the prosecutors." CNN reports: The Suwon District Prosecutor's Office charged 11 people on Thursday with stealing tech secrets from Samsung, the office said in a statement. They did not name the people or companies involved in the theft. Samsung Display, a subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate, said in a statement Friday that it was "surprised and appalled at the results of the investigation by prosecutors."

Prosecutors said Samsung invested six years and some 150 billion won ($130 million) to develop the bendable screen. Investigators have not been able to track down and question two Chinese individuals believed to be involved in the case, and have asked Interpol to help find and detain them. Of the 11 people indicted, three have been detained.
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Samsung's Foldable Screen Tech Has Been Stolen, Sold To China More

Samsung's Foldable Screen Tech Has Been Stolen, Sold To China

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  • I guess that's bad in principle, but their never ending quest to make phones that cannot fit into protective cases doesn't leave me with any sympathy for them.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 30, 2018 @07:44PM (#57729516)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • While I agree that China does not fit the model/ideation of a "developing country" it is not a "developed country".

      While there are many high tech cities and regions, there are huge areas (with large populations) of the country that are still quite primitive in need of infrastructure, education and industry. Along with that, the regions that have become modernized still have some very simplistic ideas towards intellectual property rights as well as what we would consider moral (or at least, contract abiding

      • "While there are many high tech cities and regions, there are huge areas (with large populations) of the country that are still quite primitive in need of infrastructure, education and industry. "

        But enough about the USA...

  • None of this happened. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theCat ( 36907 ) on Friday November 30, 2018 @07:45PM (#57729520) Journal

    The thieves did not sell the stolen tech to a Chinese company, they gave it to the Chinese government. This is a good way to advance yourself in China. As such, there is zero possibility of getting the Chi-Comms to cooperate in an investigation. Samsung can write the entire thing off along with 1,000 other inventions the Chi-Comms lifted over the last few years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      The thieves did not sell the stolen tech to a Chinese company, they gave it to the Chinese government.

      Most likely they did both. It is highly probably that whatever Chinese company bought the tech is associated with someone high up in either a major city government, the central government, Communist party, or PLA leadership.

  • On the one hand, we need to protect IP so that people keep producing it. On the other, I really, really want affordable rollable/foldable screens.

    • "On the one hand, we need to protect IP so that people keep producing it. On the other, I really, really want affordable rollable/foldable screens."

      Sure, but not this one, I don't know why nobody ever mentions it:
      It folds the wrong way!

  • So given that no product using that technology has hit the market, it will be difficult to argue that damage has been done.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ffkom ( 3519199 )
      Oh, only now I get it: By "foldable", the article does not mean really foldable displays, but "some display that is slightly rounded at two of its outer edges.
    • Samsung spend billions developing it and not some china firm gets it for 14 million and gets to compete with Samsung. If this is allowed to happen, companies will no longer want to spend on R and D
      • Or they will, but instead of offloading the cost of keeping their secrets safe on governments, they’ll learn proper security. This would have the added benefit of protecting end uses of their products.

        • Re:And the "Tech" is so bad that there is no produ (Score:4, Interesting)

          by geek ( 5680 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @10:47AM (#57731828)

          Or they will, but instead of offloading the cost of keeping their secrets safe on governments, they’ll learn proper security. This would have the added benefit of protecting end uses of their products.

          There is no proper security here. China is offering people at one company 7 times their current salary guaranteed for 3 years if they leave and come work for them with just the IP they have in their heads. You literally can not defend against that as a private company. China has promised to spend hundreds of billions before 2025 to steal the IP of western nations and stand up fabs in country to produce and sell them without the RnD costs.

          The only way to deal with this is massive tariffs and trade embargoes. China is the worlds largest copying machine and deserves no respect economically on the world stage.

      • The R&D costs were $130M and not in the billions (that was billions of won).

  • You put a device in one end and out pops a cheaper copy on the other side! No espionage involved.

  • trump needs up the tariffs on this tech from china

  • I think not. As a thought experiment, I'll design a 3D display that takes 2 old school CRT displays, 30" each, at if memory serves 5 lb per inch for that tech. I'll mount them each to a sheet of plywood, and join the plywood with hinges.

    I can easily make a blueprint of that.

    Will it work? Yeah, pretty sure I can make that work.

    Will it scale to a 2 lb set of glasses that sit on your nose? Ummm

  • Growing pain for Samsung. China is doing exactly what every other developing nation did prior to gaining supremecy.

  • so kill them. any anyone who tries to export. across the org. problem solved.
  • Marketing people need folding screens to sell cellphones, apparently. I am a "power user" who just want's a good flat screen--without rounding corners that have a blue line, and that sticks up, so we cannot put a proper screen protector on them.

  • Um, shouldn't Samsung have patented this? Which would make all the plans public by default?

    • A patent give the minimal information needed to describe the design. Real world implementation and manufacturing involve much more than is in the patent.

      • A patent is supposed to be detailed enough that someone else can reproduce the invention based on the patent. That implementation is then legally protected so no one else can sell a device using that implementation.

  • The technology wasn't stolen. The supplier leaked the blueprints. It's not as if someone hacked into their systems and took it or it was a phishing scheme. No, Samsung set up a company and a bunch of people from there sold it to some Chinese companies. Maybe Samsung should implement better hiring practices or pay better.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Western companies particularly cannot compete once their IP is being produced in sweatshop conditions - which is ironic because a lot of them set up different sweatshops in the same country in the first place.

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