InterviewSeeDevice CEO speaks out on KBS defamation lawsuit, seeks up to $1.23 bil. in damages

Kim Hoon, founder and CEO of U.S. tech firm SeeDevice / Courtesy of Kim Hoon

The founder of a U.S. tech company that has filed a defamation lawsuit against Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and its U.S. affiliate, KBS America, says false reporting by the broadcaster cost him years of research and a major commercial opportunity and he is seeking up to $1.23 billion in damages.

Kim Hoon, founder and CEO of SeeDevice, told The Korea Times in an interview that the KBS report caused substantial harm to both his reputation and that of his company.

“In addition to recovering the economic losses caused by the false report, we are seeking compensation for the reputational harm suffered by me and the company,” Kim said. “We are also seeking punitive damages to the maximum extent permitted under U.S. law, as well as a retraction of the false report.”

A damages expert retained by SeeDevice calculated the company's economic losses at between $236.25 million and $1.23 billion, citing business opportunities that fell through following the KBS report. A trial has been set at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to begin in January 2027.

The case stems from an August 2024 KBS report alleging the Korean government had decided to retract its research grant from Kim after finding the company's technology to be fraudulent.

KBS News reports on alleged fraud in technology development at SeeDevice, a U.S.-based quantum sensor developer, in a broadcast from Aug. 25, 2024. Captured from KBS News

At the center of the dispute is QMOS, a type of quantum effect complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), which is SeeDevice's proprietary sensor technology. Unlike conventional CMOS sensors, which capture visible light and the near-infrared spectrum, QMOS is designed to simultaneously detect short-wave infrared wavelengths — enabling it to sense thermal patterns, moisture content and chemical properties that are invisible to the naked eye — without the specialized materials and processes that many conventional infrared sensors require.

In its reporting, KBS cited an unnamed insider who alleged that the technology, developed by Kim, lacked substance. The broadcaster said it had raised questions about the company's nano image sensor technology as early as 2007, prompting the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology to seek the return of more than 9.2 billion won ($5.94 million) in research funding in 2011.

When contacted by The Korea Times, KBS said its 2024 follow-up report had already noted that “the Seoul Administrative Court canceled the 9.2 billion won grant recovery order, ruling that sanctions required proven research misconduct by the principal investigator, and that no funds were ultimately recovered.”

KBS said this shows SeeDevice's claim that its reporting was false does not fully reflect the facts and that it and its U.S. affiliate intend to respond through appropriate legal procedures. The broadcaster did not provide further comment beyond that position.

Kim countered that KBS pointed to the follow-up report when seeking dismissal of the lawsuit, which the U.S. federal court denied, finding that KBS had failed to publish it in a manner that would have been sufficient under law to limit the plaintiffs' damages.

Kim also said KBS has not identified any insider with the information or expertise needed to evaluate SeeDevice's technology, which he said has been repeatedly validated by qualified experts and the courts.

That validation included project performance evaluations conducted during the government-sponsored research program, review by a research integrity verification committee and judicial proceedings before both the Seoul Central District Court and the Seoul High Court between 2001 and 2011, according to Kim.

By the time the matter reached the Seoul Administrative Court in 2012, Kim said, there was already a substantial body of technical and factual evidence in the record and the Korean court rejected the request to return the grant.

In May, the U.S. court ruled that claims against KBS America would be tried before a jury while claims against KBS would be heard by a judge, rejecting KBS' arguments that the plaintiffs should be denied a jury trial against its U.S. affiliate as “untenable,” according to SeeDevice.

Despite the sweeping range of potential applications SeeDevice lists for QMOS on its website — from non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring and machine vision imaging to object detection and facial recognition — the technology has yet to reach commercial markets.

Kim said the company is actively expanding partnerships and commercialization opportunities across multiple industries. "We are currently focused on commercializing our proprietary QMOS technology across a range of advanced imaging applications," he said.

When asked about specific customers or commercial agreements, he declined to elaborate. "Because these activities involve ongoing business discussions, I am not in a position to comment on specific customers, commercial agreements or sales at this time," he said.