A US jury has convicted 71-year-old Chih-Yee Jen, a former Philips engineer, of stealing trade secrets related to the company's medical imaging X-ray tubes and passing them to a Chinese competitor. Jen worked at Philips's Aurora, Illinois facility developing X-ray tubes for its Dunlee brand from 2006 until he left in December 2017, having begun secret talks months earlier with Xiaoqin Du of Kunshan GuoLi Electronic Technology, who sought his help building rival tubes for a Kunshan GuoLi subsidiary also based in Aurora.

Prosecutors said Jen stole four of nine categories of protected information, including manufacturing processes, tolerance measurements and code, despite having signed agreements barring him from disclosing Philips's proprietary data. He joined the Chinese-owned Aurora subsidiary in January 2018, and also helped recruit fellow Philips engineers Fince Tendian and Vladimir Nevtonenko, who both pleaded guilty before trial. Philips filed a civil suit in 2019, and Jen was found guilty after a week-long jury trial; he faces sentencing on 5 January 2027, with his co-conspirators sentenced in December 2026.