Yeong Lin Pleads Guilty to Federal Charge of Trade Secrets Theft of Corning Blueprints
By Todd
CNNMoney.com is reporting that a California man admitted Tuesday to conspiring to steal highly valuable flat-panel-glass blueprints from Corning Inc. and turn them over to a rival business in Taiwan.
Yeong Lin, 67 years old, of Fountain Valley, Calif., could get up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of theft of trade secrets. Sentencing was set for Sept. 14.
While working as a consultant for Taiwan-based PicVue Electronics Ltd., prosecutors allege Lin put PicVue officials in contact with a Corning employee who offered drawings he had illegally obtained from his employer, which is based in western New York.
Jonathan Sanders, who worked at a Corning glassmaking plant in Harrodsburg, Ky., pleaded guilty last year and drew a four-year sentence and a $20,000 fine. He admitted stealing the blueprints of Corning's liquid-crystal-display glassmaking process and selling them to PicVue for $34,000 in 2000.
The materials, which were returned to Corning after it sued PicVue, were valued at more than $100 million, prosecutors said. PicVue, which later declared bankruptcy, had intended to use the technology to manufacture thin-filter- transistor LCD glass and compete with Corning, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney James Harrington described Lin as "a small player in this" and noted that no PicVue officials in Taiwan were charged even though at least one of them owns property in the United States.
Corning is the world's biggest maker of ultra-thin LCD glass for flat-screen televisions and computers. The specialty glass accounts for the bulk of its profits, which reached $327 million in the first quarter.
Sanders, of Lawrenceburg, Ky., said he found the documents at the Harrodsburg plant in 1999 in a hopper containing confidential material that was to be destroyed.
PicVue engineers took digital photographs of the blueprints, which described a proprietary glassmaking process called "fusion draw," and downloaded the pictures to a disk that was taken to Taiwan, court records showed. The original blueprints were then destroyed.
Corning learned about the theft in 2001 and notified the FBI, which began an investigation that led to the arrests of Sanders and Lin in 2005.
Yeong Lin, 67 years old, of Fountain Valley, Calif., could get up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of theft of trade secrets. Sentencing was set for Sept. 14.
While working as a consultant for Taiwan-based PicVue Electronics Ltd., prosecutors allege Lin put PicVue officials in contact with a Corning employee who offered drawings he had illegally obtained from his employer, which is based in western New York.
Jonathan Sanders, who worked at a Corning glassmaking plant in Harrodsburg, Ky., pleaded guilty last year and drew a four-year sentence and a $20,000 fine. He admitted stealing the blueprints of Corning's liquid-crystal-display glassmaking process and selling them to PicVue for $34,000 in 2000.
The materials, which were returned to Corning after it sued PicVue, were valued at more than $100 million, prosecutors said. PicVue, which later declared bankruptcy, had intended to use the technology to manufacture thin-filter- transistor LCD glass and compete with Corning, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney James Harrington described Lin as "a small player in this" and noted that no PicVue officials in Taiwan were charged even though at least one of them owns property in the United States.
Corning is the world's biggest maker of ultra-thin LCD glass for flat-screen televisions and computers. The specialty glass accounts for the bulk of its profits, which reached $327 million in the first quarter.
Sanders, of Lawrenceburg, Ky., said he found the documents at the Harrodsburg plant in 1999 in a hopper containing confidential material that was to be destroyed.
PicVue engineers took digital photographs of the blueprints, which described a proprietary glassmaking process called "fusion draw," and downloaded the pictures to a disk that was taken to Taiwan, court records showed. The original blueprints were then destroyed.
Corning learned about the theft in 2001 and notified the FBI, which began an investigation that led to the arrests of Sanders and Lin in 2005.
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