On Friday, some departing members of the HTC design team were busted in Taipei for suspicion of fraudulent expense claims and for possibly stealing trade secrets in advance of opening their own design company. Five men, including Vice President of Product Design Thomas Chien, R&D director Wu Chien Hung and senior manager Justin Huang were all cuffed and detained. Chien and Wu remained in custody while the other three were released on bail. Huang was the man who sketched the original design for the HTC One.
HTC VP of Product Design Thomas Chien, now in custody
Chien, Wu and Huang had been planning on opening their own design team to focus on companies in mainland China. They had already registered a name for their new firm, "Xiaoyu" and were planning on leaving HTC after receiving their mid-year bonuses. The company caught Chien downloading files relating to the unreleased Sense 6.0 UI which he emailed to a third party. The Taiwan based handset manufacturer's chairwoman Cher Wang reported the incident to Taiwan's Investigation Bureau.
Recommended For You
Additionally, the three men split the equivalent of $334,000 USD after scamming HTC out of money by asking an external design house to bill HTC that amount for work that the design house said it performed on the design of the aluminum chassis for the HTC One. The design was actually done in-house.
"The company expects employees to observe and practice the highest levels of integrity and ethics. Protecting the company's proprietary and intellectual properties, privacy and security is a core fundamental responsibility of every employee. The company does not condone any violation. As this matter is currently under investigation by the relevant authorities, we therefore refrain from further comments."-HTC
The story is big news in Taiwan as you can tell from a newscast of the story below.
Our new coffee table book, Iconic Phones, is a stunning visual tribute to the legends in the world of phones, featuring exclusive high-resolution photography, stories, quotes and fun trivia. Pre-order now and save 15% with code: PARENA15
Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.
A discussion is a place, where people can voice their opinion, no matter if it
is positive, neutral or negative. However, when posting, one must stay true to the topic, and not just share some
random thoughts, which are not directly related to the matter.
Things that are NOT allowed:
Off-topic talk - you must stick to the subject of discussion
Offensive, hate speech - if you want to say something, say it politely
Spam/Advertisements - these posts are deleted
Multiple accounts - one person can have only one account
Impersonations and offensive nicknames - these accounts get banned
To help keep our community safe and free from spam, we apply temporary limits to newly created accounts:
New accounts created within the last 24 hours may experience restrictions on how frequently they can
post or comment.
These limits are in place as a precaution and will automatically lift.
Moderation is done by humans. We try to be as objective as possible and moderate with zero bias. If you think a
post should be moderated - please, report it.
Have a question about the rules or why you have been moderated/limited/banned? Please,
contact us.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed:
To help keep our community safe and free from spam, we apply temporary limits to newly created accounts: