Kyodo World Service, April 19th, 2007
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to set up a
panel to counter rising industrial espionage cases, Vice Economy,
Trade and Industry Minister Takao Kitabata said Thursday.
Kitabata unveiled the plan in the wake of the arrest last month
of a former Chinese employee of Denso Corp. on suspicion of taking
out product design data from the automobile parts maker, a member of
the Toyota Motor Corp. group.
''Japanese manufacturers' international competitiveness is
backed by know-how and skills (cultivated) at the (production)
scene,'' Kitabata said at a news conference after meeting with
business leaders in the Chubu region in central Japan.
''We must prevent an unintended outflow (of corporate data or
technology) that is not preventable under the current patent
system,'' he said.
Kitabata said his ministry will promote legal studies over
alleged industrial espionage, citing the fact that the government was
unable to apply the Unfair Competition Prevention Law to the Chinese
national's alleged espionage case.
''We must consider whether we can accept such a thing,'' he said.
On April 6, Nagoya prosecutors released Yang Luchuan, an
engineer at Denso, based in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, because
investigators were unable to confirm why the data was taken and
whether it was handed over to other people.
Denso dismissed Yang on April 17.
Yang was arrested March 16 for allegedly downloading to a
company laptop more than 130,000 pieces of product design data from a
company database from October to December last year and taking the
laptop to his home in February this year, in what police said was an
alleged embezzlement.
Police decided to arrest Yang on that day even though they
wanted more time to conduct their probes because they had realized
that Yang would soon return to China.
Yang has admitted to taking out the company-owned laptop to
''study and work at home,'' but denied handing the data to other
people, according to police.
