The court has not published the verdict on its website and it is not known whether the engineers will appeal the ruling. Huawei did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The case sent shock waves through China’s semiconductor industry and highlighted the issue of intellectual property theft on the mainland.
According to the Securities Times report, Zhang Kun, a former researcher at HiSilicon, left Huawei in 2019 and founded Zunpai in March 2021 to develop Wi-fi communication chips. Zhang managed to persuade some of his former colleagues to join him at the start-up.
Huawei Technologies quickly took action against Zunpai. According to a legal document published in August 2023, Shanghai HiSilicon Technology, a Huawei subsidiary, applied to the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court to freeze 95 million yuan (US$13.1 million) worth of assets under Zunpai and its subsidiaries.
