Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Reverse-engineerable company information as a principal business asset
Supreme Court, June 30, 2022, 2018Do4794 (judgment)
Case name: 업무상배임[역설계 등의 방법으로 입수 가능한 상태에 있는 회사의 정보를 무단으로 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하는지 여부가 문제된 사안]
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a company employee takes materials out without authorisation intending to use them for a competitor or for their own benefit, do those materials have to be a principal business asset for the act to be breach of trust by business, and is information that anyone can obtain quickly by ordinary reverse engineering of a product already sold on the market such an asset?
Holding
It need not be a trade secret, but the materials must at least be a principal business asset: not open to the public, obtainable in the ordinary way only through the holder, acquired or developed by the holder at substantial time, effort and cost, and capable of giving a competitive advantage through their use. Where a product is sold without confidentiality measures, the mere possibility of obtaining information by reverse engineering does not make it public; but information that can be obtained easily by ordinary reverse engineering without substantial time, effort and cost cannot normally be obtained only through the holder, so it is not a principal business asset. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment below and remanded the case to the Incheon District Court.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
회사 직원이 경쟁업체 또는 스스로의 이익을 위하여 이용할 의사로 무단으로 자료를 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하기 위하여는, 그 자료가 반드시 영업비밀에 해당할 필요까지는 없다고 하겠지만 적어도 그 자료가 불특정 다수인에게 공개되어 있지 않아 보유자를 통하지 아니하고는 이를 통상 입수할 수 없고
Unofficial English translation
For an act of an employee of a company taking out data without authorization with the intent to use it for the benefit of a competitor or for his or her own benefit to fall under the crime of occupational breach of trust, although it is not necessary that the data constitute a trade secret, at the very least the data must not be disclosed to an unspecified number of persons and must not be ordinarily obtainable without going through the holder thereof, and
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 인천지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Incheon District Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
회사 직원이 경쟁업체 또는 스스로의 이익을 위하여 이용할 의사로 무단으로 자료를 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하기 위하여는
Unofficial English translation
For an act of an employee of a company taking out data without authorization with the intent to use it for the benefit of a competitor or for his or her own benefit to fall under the crime of occupational breach of trust,
Factors
- 불특정 다수인에게 공개되어 있지 않아 보유자를 통하지 아니하고는 이를 통상 입수할 수 없고
- 그 보유자가 자료의 취득이나 개발을 위해 상당한 시간, 노력 및 비용을 들인 것으로서
- 그 자료의 사용을 통해 경쟁상의 이익을 얻을 수 있는 정도의 영업상 주요한 자산에는 해당하여야 한다
- 상당한 시간과 노력 및 비용을 들이지 않고도 통상적인 역설계 등의 방법으로 쉽게 입수 가능한 상태에 있는 정보라면
Unofficial English translation
• not being disclosed to an unspecified number of persons and not being ordinarily obtainable without going through the holder thereof,
• the holder having incurred substantial time, effort, and expense in acquiring or developing the data, and
• it must constitute an important business asset of such a degree that competitive benefits can be obtained through the use of the data.
• if the information is in a state of being easily obtainable by ordinary means such as reverse engineering, without incurring substantial time, effort, and expense,
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2011. 6. 30. 선고 2009도3915 판결(공2011하, 1549)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2009Do3915 decided June 30, 2011 (Gong 2011 Ha, 1549)
Decisions referred to
대법원 2011. 6. 30. 선고 2009도3915 판결(공2011하, 1549), 대법원 2012. 6. 28. 선고 2011도3657 판결
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
When individually public items are combined, what degree of organic combination or systematic arrangement would create a new value beyond their simple sum and so make the whole set a principal business asset?
A later Supreme Court decision stating when the combination of individually public items yields a new value would change this reading. So would a record showing that the victim company kept the materials secret or that the component data required substantial time, effort and cost to obtain, or an amendment to Article 355(2) or Article 356 of the Criminal Act.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 8 (open question and revisit condition).
Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “When individually public items are combined, what degree of organic combination or systematic arrangement would create a new value beyond their simple sum and so make the whole set a principal business asset?” vs Independent “What level of time, effort, and cost makes reverse engineering sufficiently demanding for the information to remain a major business asset?”
The primary asks how combining individually public items creates protectable value, while the independent asks how much time, effort, and cost makes reverse engineering demanding enough.
회사 직원이 경쟁업체 또는 스스로의 이익을 위하여 이용할 의사로 무단으로 자료를 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하기 위하여는, 그 자료가 반드시 영업비밀에 해당할 필요까지는 없다고 하겠지만 적어도 그 자료가 불특정 다수인에게 공개되어 있지 않아 보유자를 통하지 아니하고는 이를 통상 입수할 수 없고Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Incheon District Court, sitting on appeal, in its judgment of 22 February 2018 (2016No3514), treated the data files for each component of the dental imaging equipment, the medical device technical documents, quality regulations, quality procedure sheets, source data of the software driving the equipment and the work standard sheets taken out by Defendant 2 as principal business assets of the victim company, and found the defendants guilty of breach of trust by business.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the court below had misapprehended the law on removal of principal business assets and on the constitution of breach of trust and had failed to examine what was needed. It took the requirements of the existing precedent as the rule and set them against the record: the structure, principle, main components and drawings of the product had been disclosed in the published patent applications, the components were already known products that could be taken apart and reassembled without much time or cost, it was hard to see that the technical documents, quality regulations and quality procedure sheets contained additional information obtainable only through the holder, the source data showed no difference from software anyone can obtain, and the whole set created no value beyond the sum of its parts. It noted that the victim company had kept no secret, given no training and signed no confidentiality agreement, and reversed the judgment for want of the necessary examination.
Distinguishing conditions
- Materials that contain information obtainable only through the holder and acquired or developed by that holder at substantial time, effort and cost.
- A product whose components cannot be taken apart or whose specifications cannot be grasped or obtained from the manufacturer without substantial time and cost.
- A set of individually public items whose organic combination or systematic arrangement creates a value beyond the simple sum of the individual values.
Record verification notes
Set each item taken out against the published patent gazette and the makers of the components, and ask whether its detailed specifications can be had from the manufacturer. Then look for what would show that the holder spent substantial time, effort and cost on the materials, and check whether the victim company kept them secret, trained its employees or signed confidentiality agreements. Finally, read the whole set together and ask whether the combination creates value beyond the sum of its parts.
From the official text
Points at issue
회사 직원이 경쟁업체 또는 스스로의 이익을 위하여 이용할 의사로 무단으로 자료를 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하기 위해서는 그 자료가 영업상 주요한 자산에 해당하여야 하는지 여부(적극) / 비밀유지조치를 취하지 아니한 채 판매 등으로 공지된 제품의 경우, 상당한 시간과 노력 및 비용을 들이지 않고도 통상적인 역설계 등의 방법으로 쉽게 입수 가능한 상태에 있는 정보가 영업상 주요한 자산에 해당하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether an act of an employee of a company taking out data without authorization with the intent to use it for the benefit of a competitor or for his or her own benefit falls under the crime of occupational breach of trust requires that the data constitute an important business asset (affirmative) / Whether information that is in a state of being easily obtainable by ordinary means such as reverse engineering, without incurring substantial time, effort, and expense, constitutes an important business asset in the case of a product that has been made public through sales or the like without taking confidentiality measures (negative)
Summary of the holding
회사 직원이 경쟁업체 또는 스스로의 이익을 위하여 이용할 의사로 무단으로 자료를 반출한 행위가 업무상배임죄에 해당하기 위하여는, 그 자료가 반드시 영업비밀에 해당할 필요까지는 없다고 하겠지만 적어도 그 자료가 불특정 다수인에게 공개되어 있지 않아 보유자를 통하지 아니하고는 이를 통상 입수할 수 없고 그 보유자가 자료의 취득이나 개발을 위해 상당한 시간, 노력 및 비용을 들인 것으로서, 그 자료의 사용을 통해 경쟁상의 이익을 얻을 수 있는 정도의 영업상 주요한 자산에는 해당하여야 한다. 또한 비밀유지조치를 취하지 아니한 채 판매 등으로 공지된 제품의 경우, 역설계(reverse engineering)를 통한 정보의 획득이 가능하다는 사정만으로 그 정보가 불특정 다수인에게 공개된 것으로 단정할 수 없으나, 상당한 시간과 노력 및 비용을 들이지 않고도 통상적인 역설계 등의 방법으로 쉽게 입수 가능한 상태에 있는 정보라면 보유자를 통하지 아니하고서는 통상 입수할 수 없는 정보에 해당한다고 보기 어려우므로 영업상 주요한 자산에 해당하지 않는다.
Order
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 인천지방법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Incheon District Court.
Provisions referred to
형법 제355조 제2항, 제356조
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
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