US convicts ex-Philips engineer for exposing X-ray secrets to competitor
Dutch electronics giant saw right through ex-engineer’s plot, albeit over a year after it all unravelled
A former Philips engineer from the Aurora, Illinois facility has been found guilty of stealing the company's medical imaging trade secrets and handing them over to a Chinese rival. Chih-Yee Jen, 71, worked on X-ray tubes for Philips' Dunlee brand from 2006 up until December 2017. The company planned to close the Aurora facility by the end of 2017, leading to around 200 job losses.
Jen reportedly began discussions with Xiaoqin Du, a senior executive at Kunshan GuoLi Electronic Technology, in August 2017 about stealing Philips' trade secrets to develop X-ray tubes for one of Du's subsidiaries. Prosecutors say Jen accessed Philips databases and other locations to obtain four specific types of trade secrets, including manufacturing processes and code.
He then joined a Chinese subsidiary of Philips in January 2018 and continued developing X-ray tubes using the stolen information. Kunshan Yiyuan bought the X-ray tube business from the subsidiary in May 2018. Philips sued Jen in April 2019, alleging he kept the secrets until July 2022. U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros called the theft of proprietary information a "serious economic crime" that harms American jobs and hinders research and development. Jen, along with two other former Philips engineers, faces sentencing later this year.
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