Yeong Lin, 67, of Fountain Valley, California, admitted June 12 to conspiring to steal highly valuable flat-panel-glass blueprints from Corning Inc. and turn them over to PicVue, a rival business in Taiwan. He could get up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of theft of trade secrets.
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, Kentucky, 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. PicVue later declared bankruptcy.
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. (Source: AP, International Harold Tribune, Jun 12, 2007).