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Samsung's Foldable Screen Tech Has Been Stolen, Sold To China (cnn.com)
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.
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.
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.
China is not a "developing country" anymore. It hasn't been for about 15-20 years, if not longer. It is to us what the US was to Europe in the 1930s, and by then the federal government would have prosecuted the shit out of such an act, but not a damn thing will be done to any Chinese that escaped the South Korean government unless one of the parties brings a big hammer out against China.
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.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
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.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
So given that no product using that technology has hit the market, it will be difficult to argue that damage has been done.
You put a device in one end and out pops a cheaper copy on the other side! No espionage involved.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
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.
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
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
how dare Samsung spend billions to develop the tech and now will be at a substantial loss because the Chinese firms can use it without spending a dime on R&D. Samsung will know better than to develop new technology in the future.
Growing pain for Samsung. China is doing exactly what every other developing nation did prior to gaining supremecy.
You’re being sarcastic, but his is how Apple felt when Samsung produced an iPhone clone.
so kill them. any anyone who tries to export. across the org. problem solved.
Rounded corners requires far less intellectual insight than the technology required to make foldable/rollable displays.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Um, shouldn't Samsung have patented this? Which would make all the plans public by default?
Yeah.. I don't think you know what silicone is... Think fake titties, not computers
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.
The R&D costs were $130M and not in the billions (that was billions of won).
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.
This is a good thing. Companies keep things secret then overtime the secrets are lost to history. It's nice when intellectual property gets stolen and copied so it's our might actually be around later when the original company no longer exists. I mean unless we're planning on the human race not existing in 50 Generations
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.