Taiwanese contract chip maker United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and three of its employees were indicted on Wednesday for violating the Trade Secrets Act and the Copyright Act.

According to the Taichung District Prosecutors Office, UMC and the three individuals -Ho, Wang and Rong - allegedly illegally replicated Micron Technology's manufacturing techniques.

Ho and Wang are former employees of Micron Technology, where the former was a section chief and the latter a manufacturing deputy manager, prosecutors said.

In November 2015, Ho joined UMC where he became technical manager for special projects. Wang followed suit in March 2016, joining UMC as a technical manager for component parts.

Ho is suspected of stealing classified trade information from Micron Technology and using it at UMC. The information was reportedly related to the manugacturing of computer memory wafers.

Wang is suspected of stealing manufacturing technology and protocols and giving them to a UMC technical division associate, surnamed Rong, to speed up the design of UMC's process protocol, prosecutors said.

Micron Technology filed a suit after discovering that Wang had made electronic copies of company files and handed over to UMC.