US convicts ex-Philips engineer for exposing X-ray secrets to competitor

A 71-year-old Philips engineer has been found guilty of stealing the company’s medical imaging trade secrets and passing them on to a Chinese competitor. Chih-Yee Jen worked at Philips’ Aurora, Illinois, facility where engineers researched, developed, and manufactured X-ray tubes for the company’s computed tomography (CT) medical imaging machines. X-ray tubes contain multiple components that combine to transform electricity into X-ray images. Jen left Philips on December 29, 2017. The company announced as early as June 2017 that it would close its Aurora facility by the end of the year, affecting around 200 jobs, transferring the responsibilities to Hamburg, Germany. Talks between Jen and Xiaoqin Du, 64, a veep at vacuum electronic business Kunshan GuoLi Electronic Technology, began in August 2017. According to court documents, Suzhou-based Du had sought Jen’s assistance in stealing Philips’s trade secrets and using them to develop X-ray tubes for a Kunshan GuoLi subsidiary, also based in Aurora, IL. Court documents list nine different types of trade secrets that were pertinent to the case, including seasoning protocols, component specifications, manufacturing and assembly processes, tolerance measurements, annealing specifications, and code. Jen, who had worked at Philips’ Aurora facility developing X-ray tubes for its Dunlee brand since 2006, was accused of stealing four of these secrets by accessing company databases “and other locations." The engineer joined the Chinese Aurora subsidiary, referred to only as Company A in legal filings, in January 2018 – soon after he left Philips a month earlier. He went on to develop X-ray tubes for Company A using stolen Philips trade secrets. Company A was sold to Kunshan Yiyuan in May 2018, which sold Company A’s X-ray tubes in China. Prosecutors stated that Philips requires all employees to sign an Ethics and Intellectual Property Agreement, which prohibited them from using, publishing, or otherwise disclosing any secret, confidential, or proprietary information during or after their employment. They also said that the staff who departed Philips after it closed the Aurora facility signed a Settlement and General Release Agreement which, in short, prevented signatories from using Philips technical information to benefit rivals. Philips filed its civil lawsuit on April 19, 2019, although it’s alleged that Jen continued to possess and conceal trade secret information well into July 2022. “The theft of proprietary information is a serious economic crime that harms American jobs and stifles critically important research and development driving the future of our nation,” said Andrew S. Boutros, US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. “When individuals, corporate entities, or nation states steal proprietary information, they are threatening our country’s technological edge. The Chicago US Attorney’s Office will continue to prosecute trade secret theft to protect innovation, ensure fair competition, and safeguard national economic security.” The lawsuit further alleged that Jen helped recruit fellow Philips engineers to steal trade secrets on behalf of Du and Kunshan GuoLi. Named in the court documents are Fince Tendian, 57, of Aurora, Illinois, and Vladimir Nevtonenko, 77, of Arlington Heights, Illinois. Both pleaded guilty to their charges before trial, whereas Jen was found guilty after one week in front of a jury. According to the indictment, both Tendian and Nevtonenko had worked on Philips’ X-ray tubes since 1998, before the Aurora facility was even opened in 2001. Nevtonenko is scheduled for sentencing on December 1, 2026. Tendian’s sentencing will follow a week later on December 8, while Jen will wait until January 5, 2027. ®