14 DAY TRIAL // The other day, we brought you the newest lawsuit on the technology industry, a civil lawsuit filed by Toshiba against SK Hynix. In it, the company makes mention of a former employee that also worked at SanDisk. Now, SanDisk, too, has filed a complaint.
It wasn't hard to see this coming, after learning that the SK Hynix employee arrested in Japan also worked for SanDisk at one point in the past.
For those that haven't heard about this before, a SK Hynix worker was apprehended not long ago, for alleged criminal infringement of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.
Said worker worked for Toshiba a long time ago, but between his tenure there and his eventual position at SK Hynix, he worked for SanDisk for a while.
Now, like Toshiba, SanDisk believes that SK Hynix got its trade secrets from that worker. Naturally, this does not sit well with them.
The theft of trade secrets relates to NAND flash technology. The man said to have handed over SanDisk's trade secrets worked for the company until 2008 (SanDisk's joint venture manufacturing facility in Yokkaichi, Japan), when he went to SK Hynix.
SanDisk, like Toshiba, is involved in the investigation (a criminal complaint was submitted at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department against the former employee), but it isn't keen on leaving things be with just that man as scapegoat, apparently.
They feel SK Hynix should not have accepted (or requested) the information in the first place, hence the civil lawsuit.
SanDisk is seeking damages restitution (money basically), plus an injunction against some SK Hynix products, among other things. Since it and Toshiba have double-teamed SK Hynix, they may even pull it off.
To be fair, the two do run a joint NAND venture, and have done so for almost 15 years now. So even if the man hadn't worked for SanDisk before, this situation may very well have come to pass regardless.
It's hard to say how long it will take for this conflict to be resolved. Knowing how lawsuits tend to go, it could take weeks, but it could also take months or years.
SK Hynix may have used the alleged trade secrets over the past 5 years, so a loss here could harm its operations expensively. Unless the three reach any sort of settlement (whether outside of court or under the auspice of a judge), we are probably in for the long haul. A year or two perhaps.