Lee & Ko Law secured a landslide victory (prevailing on all claims) on August 21, 2024 in a trade secret and copyright infringement lawsuit filed on June 29, 2020 on behalf of Ajinextek, a KOSDAQ-listed company that manufactures motion control chips and equipment for factory automation. The lawsuit was filed against former officers and employees who had misappropriated motion control technology-related source code files and were manufacturing and selling motion controllers using these files. The ruling was rendered final and conclusive on September 6, 2024.

In the related criminal case, (due to investigative authorities notifying the suspects before conducting the search and seizure), only seven source code files were seized from the former officers and employees, making it impossible to directly compare the source codes between the two companies. In response, Lee & Ko sought to prove trade secret and copyright infringement by analyzing the similarities between pseudocodes obtained through decompiling the core executable files of both companies’ motion control equipment software.

The Korea Copyright Commission conducted an appraisal, which showed that the quantitative similarity of pseudocodes for each executable file was relatively low at around 10%. However, Lee & Ko successfully argued and proved through detailed technical analysis that when pseudocodes were similar, their corresponding source codes were nearly identical, and that there were multiple qualitative similarities that could not exist in the first place, unless the source code had been misappropriated. As a result, the court recognized the trade secret and copyright infringement by the former officers and employees, ordering a complete ban on the use, disclosure, production and sale of source codes and executable files as well as their destruction and fully awarded the claimed damages of KRW 100 million (as part of the total claim).

This case stands as a rare example where trade secret and copyright infringement of software programs was fully recognized without direct source code comparison, achieved through more than four years of strong advocacy in hearings, based on thorough technical review and legal analysis. It exemplifies the outstanding capabilities and expertise of Lee & Ko’s Intellectual Property Group, gained from their extensive experience in handling numerous software-related trade secret and copyright infringement cases.

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