Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest chip foundry, has won a lawsuit against a former employee who leaked secrets including 28-nm process technology to Samsung, reports the EE Times (http://tinyurl.com/osklm3r).

Taiwan’s Supreme Court decided in favor of TSMC against Liang Mong-song, a former senior director of R&D at TSMC’s Advanced Modules Technology Division. After leaving TSMC, Liang became Samsung’s System LSI division chief technology officer.

The tech leak may have helped Samsung catch up and surpass TSMC in leading-edge 14-nm FinFET chips that foundry customers such as Qualcomm and Apple are designing for next-generation mobile devices, says the EE Times. Samsung has declined to comment on the case.