
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 19, 1994                   TAG: 9408190076
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE CURBS WORK

A federal judge has issued an order restricting the work of a former Corning Inc. engineer who went to work for one of the company's chief competitors.

Sung Ki Pak, one of the top engineers at Corning Inc.'s Blacksburg plant, resigned in March and went to work for Atlanta-based Applied Ceramics.

Corning filed suit against Pak in May alleging that the engineer would divulge Corning's trade secrets unless a federal judge prohibited him from working at Applied Ceramics.

Corning's Blacksburg plant makes ceramic substrates that automobile companies use to help control emissions in exhausts. Applied Ceramics announced last year that it was working with A.C. Rochester to develop similar substrates.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, alleges that Pak's expertise would give Applied Ceramics an unfair advantage and threaten more than 200 jobs at Corning's Blacksburg plant.

Because it dealt with Corning's trade secrets, a hearing this month for a temporary injunction against Pak was held behind closed doors.

After hearing four days of testimony, Judge Jackson Kiser ruled that Pak may continue working for Applied Ceramics but cannot help the company design honeycomb substrates.

Kiser called his ruling neutral. He said Corning would suffer if Pak disclosed its secrets, but Pak would suffer substantially from a preliminary injunction forbidding him from working for Applied.

Corning's suit claims that Pak signed an agreement when he joined Corning in 1983 in which he vowed never to reveal classified information pertaining to the company's manufacturing process.

Pak resigned from Corning on March 18 because of family and personal matters, according to the suit. When Corning executives found out he was going to work for Applied Ceramics they told him he was violating the proprietary agreement.

Corning offered to give Pak a job at its plant in Durham, N.C., or to assist him financially in his search for a job closer to his family in Alabama and continue paying his salary for two years. The company wants the court to order Pak to quit his job at Applied Ceramics and accept one of those options.

A full trial on the matter will be scheduled.

by CNB