The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at the company's store in Seoul on April 15, 2025.REUTERS/YONHAP
A former Samsung Electronics vice president accused of stealing confidential company documents and using them in a U.S. patent lawsuit against the tech company was sentenced to three years in prison on appeal Tuesday and taken into custody.
Two former Samsung Display and Samsung Electronics employees who were indicted alongside him also received heavier sentences than in their first trial and were taken into custody.
The Seoul High Court upheld the three-year prison sentence handed down to former Samsung Electronics Vice President Ahn Seung-ho on charges of violating the disclosure of trade secrets under the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act.
The court revoked Ahn's bail and ordered him detained immediately. The lower court had allowed him to remain free on bail despite sentencing him to prison.
The appeals court upheld the lower court's finding that internal documents belonging to Samsung Electronics, including a report on the company's dispute with audio equipment maker Statern Tekiya, constituted trade secrets and that Ahn and his co-defendants were guilty of illegally obtaining and disclosing them.
"There have been no changes in circumstances since the lower court's ruling that would warrant a different sentence, nor can the original sentence be considered outside the bounds of reasonableness," the court said, rejecting appeals from both Ahn and the prosecution.
The court explained that the report contained Samsung Electronics' assessments of the relevance and validity of patents, as well as its strategies for responding to patent disputes.
"The documents could not have been obtained without going through Samsung Electronics and had independent economic value because they could provide an advantage in negotiations," the court said. "Obtaining Samsung Electronics' internal analyses and negotiation strategies and passing them to a foreign company involved in litigation cannot be regarded as a legitimate exercise of patent rights."
Ahn Seung-ho, former vice president and head of the Intellectual Property Center at Samsung Electronics, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on May 30, 2024, for a hearing on whether to issue an arrest warrant over allegations that he conspired with Samsung employees to steal confidential company documents.YONHAP
A former head of Samsung Display's patent application team, identified only by the surname Lee, was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to forfeit approximately 530 million won ($400,000).
Another former employee of Samsung Electronics' Intellectual Property (IP) Center, also surnamed Lee, who was accused of leaking internal company documents, was sentenced to three years in prison.
The two had received prison terms of three years and two years, respectively, in the first trial, but both sentences were increased on appeal.
"There is a need to send a strong warning against acts of betrayal in which employees harm their own companies for personal gain," the court said.
The appeals court accepted the prosecution's argument that the original sentences were too lenient, taking into account factors including the lack of sufficient compensation for the damage caused.
Ahn served as head of Samsung Electronics' IP Center from 2010 to 2019 before leaving the company and founding Synergy IP, a nonpracticing entity (NPE) specializing in patent management.
He was indicted on charges of obtaining confidential internal documents, including patent analyses, from an employee at Samsung Electronics' IP Center. Prosecutors alleged that he used the information to select patents for litigation and shared it with investors to secure funding for the lawsuits.
In 2021, Ahn and Statern Tekiya filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging that the company had used Statern Tekiya's patented technology without authorization in products including the Galaxy S20 series.
They reportedly demanded approximately $90 million in settlement payments from Samsung Electronics.
However, the U.S. court dismissed the lawsuit in May 2024. It reportedly found that the use of Samsung Electronics' confidential information to pursue the litigation was improper.
The Korean lower court also determined that the leaked documents qualified as trade secrets and found Ahn and his co-defendants guilty of the related charges.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
