TSMC sues former executive over defection to Intel, says it's highly likely he stole trade secrets — chipmaker claims Wei-Jen Lo broke non-disclosure and non-compete agreements
TSMC on Tuesday announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Wei-Jen Lo, the company’s former Senior Vice President, who used to be responsible for the company’s strategy from 2024 all the way to his departure from the company in July 2025.
After leaving TSMC, he joined Intel as Executive Vice President, and his former employer has reasons to believe that he illegally shares TSMC’s trade secrets with the rival. In addition, the foundry has accused Lo of contract breach as he signed both a non-disclosure and a non-compete agreement with TSMC.
Wei-Jen Lo joined TSMC from Intel in 2004 as a Vice President and became Senior Vice President responsible for the company’s advanced process technologies roadmap in 2014. In March 2024, he was reassigned to Corporate Strategy Development, a group that advises the Chairman and the CEO, but is not directly involved in the research and development of next-generation process technologies. But while the new assignment formally removed him from control over TSMC’s R&D organization and process development, he continued calling together engineers from R&D teams who were not under his command to gather updates on technologies they were working on and process technologies that were at the stage of pathfinding and would be developed sometime in the future, according to TSMC.
"There is a high probability that Lo uses, leaks, discloses, delivers, or transfers TSMC’s trade secrets and confidential information to Intel, thus making legal actions (including claiming damages for breach of contract) necessary," the company told Tom's Hardware.
TSMC says that shortly after leaving the company in July 2025, Lo became an Executive Vice President at Intel, a plan he failed to reveal to TSMC’s General Counsel during the exit interview. Based on Lo’s access to unreleased technical information, his continued contact with R&D staff from 2024 to 2025, and his immediate arrival at a major competitor, TSMC alleges that there is a strong likelihood that he may use or disclose the company’s trade secrets to Intel. "
“During his employment, Lo had signed a Non-disclosure Agreement and Non-compete Agreement,” a statement by TSMC reads. “When the General Counsel of TSMC, Sylvia Fang, conducted exit interview with Lo on July 22nd, 2025, she provided a reminder notice for Lo to read thoroughly. During the exit interview, the General Counsel also explained the non-compete obligation after separation and inquired about his plans after retirement, Lo replied that he would join an academic institution, and did not mention his plan to join Intel.”
Given these circumstances, TSMC states that it has asked the Taiwanese Intellectual Property and Commercial Court to intervene and stop the potential wrongdoing. However, it is unclear how exactly TSMC plans to enforce the court’s decision in the U.S. and make Lo depart from Intel. Intel was not immediately available for comment.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Obviously it's clear cut when someone downloads a bunch of documents on the way out the door. But it seems like the definition of what constitutes a trade secret would be less clear-cut?
When someone works for one company, learns how to do something/how something works, and then employs similar methodology when he goes to work somewhere else - where do you draw the line between simply applying personal experience - as everyone does - and IP theft?
Obviously it's clear cut when someone downloads a bunch of documents on the way out the door. But it seems like the definition of what constitutes a trade secret would be less clear-cut?
When someone works for one company, learns how to do something/how something works, and then employs similar methodology when he goes to work somewhere else - where do you draw the line between simply applying personal experience - as everyone does - and IP theft?
Does any of what he is implementing within his role at intel infringing any of his former employers patents?
Using his experience to refine/design new processes is fine, him using information that he knew was proprietary to TSMC wouldn’t be acceptable.
Can they force Intel to fire him? No. Can they strongly compel them to do so or risk direct legal action against Intel for IP theft? Definitely. Even the implied threat should be more than enough for Intel to take punitive action.
This is a bad look all around and especially so on Intel's part. A definitely lack of due diligence to fully vet and verify before even considering hiring this dude. Did they just willfully ignore the likelihood that he was under NDA's and NC's?
A government controlled chip maker in Taiwan sues a government controlled chip maker in the US, and they wonder why their f16s are delayed another month. You do this right when JP stuck their neck out to prevent the island from being invaded. Best of luck when Trump meets Xi next year. Let’s be honest here too…TSMC has traditionally copied Intels nodes. A junior IP holder starting an IP fight with a senior IP holder is never an idea. Patents last 20-25 years from filing. Globally, if Intel goes nuclear, an IP fight will not be in TSMC interests. I would like to know who runs TSMC legal&govt relations, because I’d fire them.
Obviously it's clear cut when someone downloads a bunch of documents on the way out the door. But it seems like the definition of what constitutes a trade secret would be less clear-cut?
When someone works for one company, learns how to do something/how something works, and then employs similar methodology when he goes to work somewhere else - where do you draw the line between simply applying personal experience - as everyone does - and IP theft?
I would not want to the lawyer in charge of proving that knowledge gained from working at tsmc was used to make Intel products better. Not only would you have to be a lawyer but also be able to understand how chips are made at more than just the fundamental level.
My guess is DL documents might not be enough to prove guilt if the lawyers cannot prove that the "tech" was used.
What a mess. My guess is the lawyers win only here and it might take 20 years to sort out at which point the patent is useless as well as not even used anymore.
Interesting here. A quick search, Wei-Jen Lo left intel and joined TSMC back in 2004. Do you think he brought knowledge from Intel to TSMC when he spent 18 years with Intel prior to joining TSMC? Now TSMC is complaining that he has taken knowledge. Oh, the Irony as he returns to Intel 21 years later. Just can't make this stuff up.
This seems like a long shot lawsuit. There are no allegations that he took any documents. Only the fact that he regularly met people responsible for developing new tech at TSMC. But he was responsible for strategy and how would you go about that without knowing what you are developing?
Everyone is on a non-compete in the industry. Intel deff new that when they hired. Basically if you hire anyone with experience - that experience comes with NCs and NDAs.
Most likely this lawsuit is to intimidate current employees.
This is some guy who has been vice president since starting at tsmc . Although he may have been technical at some point it is unlikely he kept those skills current. These executive jobs are more brown nosing and butt kissing than actually doing anything. Maybe he did a bunch of powerpoint presentations on technical stuff so he might have some idea of the direction things are going but I doubt he has the time to read the technical details about how they are going to actually accomplish it.
Besides what did TSMC think. Seem this pushed him out the job he really liked into some corner. Sure he had a nice title and likely salary but the high level jobs are more politics than actually ability. They in effect fired him and if he was one of those people who really liked his work he would find another job doing what he liked.
