A Chinese company filed a patent in China about a week after a researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) leaked data to the firm, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
The Public Security Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department believes that the similarity between the leaked information and the patent suggests the data was used in the application.
Quan Hengdao, a Chinese senior researcher at AIST in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law by disclosing trade secrets. Quan is suspected of leaking research data related to AIST's fluorine compound synthesis technology, which is considered tantamount to AIST's trade secrets, by email to the Chinese firm in April 2018.
