Former DuPont Researcher Gets 14 Months In Jail

At a hearing on Oct. 20, former DuPont research chemist and conductive polymer expert Hong Meng was sentenced to 14 months in jail by a federal court in Delaware for theft of trade secrets.

In a June plea agreement with the U.S. attorney, the 44-year-old chemist admitted he downloaded to his personal computer DuPont technology for lengthening the life of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) used in displays (C&EN, June 14, page 25).

However, Meng drew less than the maximum penalty for his crime. David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, said when charging Meng a year ago that his infraction made him liable for a 10-year prison sentence and a fine of $250,000.

Following the sentencing, Weiss revealed that the chemist had solicited funding from a regional Chinese government to set up a factory employing 1,000 people to make OLED televisions. The technology Meng stole was the process "best suited for large-scale commercialization of OLED displays," Weiss noted.

In a separate intellectual property case, DuPont says Chinese authorities raided an underground plant in Nantong, China, that had produced $5 million worth of chlorantraniliprole, the active ingredient in DuPont's Rynaxypyr insecticide. The raid, DuPont adds, uncovered China's largest known agricultural chemical counterfeiting scheme.

Wang Hua, deputy director of the Nantong Public Security Bureau, says the case highlights the Chinese government's commitment to protecting intellectual property. Local authorities, he adds, filed criminal charges against the three owners of the plant.