Samsung Accused 9 People Of Selling Its Curved Screen Technology

The CEO and eight employees of Toptec Co Ltd (Samsung supplier) have been accused by South Korean prosecutors of infringing on intellectual property. These nine people and two companies sold Samsung's monopolistic OLED curved display technology to an unknown Chinese company. They offered the information regarding the design and construction of this display for $ 13.8 million through a shell company. Toptec Co Ltd is a company that produces the components used to create the display.

Samsung Display, Samsung's company, has sent documents on the production and design of Samsung's unique foldable OLED display and "3D lamination" technology to the shell company set up by the group. Later, the group sold these intellectual assets to an unidentified company in China. According to Reuters, Toptec Co Ltd has denied the allegations and said it did nothing wrong.

As a technology giant in Korea, Samsung is leading with the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology; so rival companies do everything they can to compete with it in this fierce market. Recently, the company has introduced a new design with a foldable touch screen that will change the development of smartphones in the future. The curved screen technology has not been officially launched but has attracted a lot of attention.

To develop 3D lamination technology, Samsung spent up to six years with 38 engineers and a budget of up to 150 billion won (equivalent to $134 million), according to prosecutors. The leak of information on this technology is a significant blow to the company and to the country as Korea views this as a core technology of the country.

Samsung Display has told Bloomberg that they were shocked by the results the prosecutors had investigated. Samsung expects its folding OLED display to be a lingering trend in comparison to its rivals.

Companies do everything to win competitors and trade secrets are always critical to affirm the company's position in the market. Earlier this year, Match Group (Tinder's parent company) and Bumble filed a lawsuit against each other regarding IP abuse. Although Uber is currently free to use Waymo's self-driving cars in its operation, Waymo (a company owned by Alphabet) accused Uber of stealing its trade secrets in February which worthed nearly $ 245 million at that time.