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Second Apple employee accused of stealing self-driving car tech
Apple is grappling with another employee accused of stealing autonomous vehicle trade secrets. NBC News has learned that the FBI arrested Jizhong Chen for allegedly trying to swipe self-driving car tech and pass it along to a Chinese competitor. After an employee saw him taking photos in a sensitive work area, the company conducted an investigation that discovered thousands of sensitive documents on his personal computer, including roughly a hundred photos from inside an Apple building. They also found that he'd recently applied to work at that competitor.
US charges Huawei with stealing trade secrets and violating sanctions
The US has filed 10 trade secret-related charges and 13 linked to sanction violations against Chinese telecom Huawei. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the charges in a joint press conference Monday, which are likely to further deepen the tensions between the US and China.
Nine people charged with selling Samsung's curved display tech
Prosecutors in South Korea have indicted nine people and two companies for allegedly selling Samsung's curved-edge OLED display tech (which it uses in its flagship Galaxy phones) to a company in China. The CEO of Samsung supplier Toptec Co Ltd was among three people arrested over the scheme. Prosecutors say he and eight employees received about $13.8 million for the intellectual property.
US semiconductor company claims Huawei tried to steal its technology
Huawei has faced quite a bit of pushback in the US as lawmakers and government agencies continue to claim the company and its potential connections to the Chinese government pose a security threat to the country. But the company is also now receiving pressure from California-based firm CNEX Labs, which claims Huawei has been trying to steal its intellectual property for years. The accusations were made this week as part of an ongoing lawsuit Huawei has brought against CNEX, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Ex-Apple employee arrested with stash of self-driving car secrets
In a world where everyone wants a piece of the growing self-driving industry, we might have to get used to reports of betrayal and trade secret theft. US authorities have just arrested a former Apple employee for stealing the tech giant's self-driving trade secrets. Xiaolang Zhang was charged with stealing circuit boards and a computer server from Cupertino's self-driving car lab. He's also being accused of downloading a 25-page blueprint for a driverless car circuit board, which served as the basis for the criminal charge, though he reportedly downloaded some technical manuals and reports to his wife's computer, as well.
Levandowski faces fresh accusations of stealing trade secrets
The Waymo v. Uber trial is set to finally get started next month, but Anthony Levandowski, the man who has been accused of taking 14,000 files from Google's self-driving outfit when he left the company for his own startup Otto, has been hit with a lawsuit that may affect Waymo's. Wired reports that Levandowski's former nanny, Erika Wong, has filed a suit against him claiming Levandowski failed to pay her wages, violated labor and health codes and inflicted emotional distress. But the complaint also includes details of Levandowski's business practices, which suggest that he might have been paying off employees of other autonomous vehicle companies and that he considered fleeing to Canada when Waymo first filed its lawsuit.
'Jacobs letter' unsealed, accuses Uber of spying, hacking
Waymo's lawsuit against Uber for allegedly stealing technology for self-driving cars hasn't gone to trial yet, because the judge received a letter from the Department of Justice suggesting Uber withheld crucial evidence. That letter, with some redactions, is now available for all to read and it's not good news for Uber. It was written by the attorney of a former employee, Richard Jacobs, and it contains claims that the company routinely tried to hack its competitors to gain an edge, used a team of spies to steal secrets or surveil political figures and even bugged meetings between transport regulators -- with some of this information delivered directly to former CEO Travis Kalanick.
Judge rules Canada's de-indexing order won't apply to Google in the US
For the past few years, Google has been the subject of a legal debate in Canada, one aiming to determine whether Canadian court rulings regarding the internet are applicable just in Canada or should be enforceable worldwide owing to the borderless nature of the web. In June, the Canadian Supreme Court decided that they should be enforced globally, but a US federal judge has now weighed in, and at least in this particular case, the Canadian ruling won't apply in the US.
Waymo wants $2.6 billion from Uber for a single trade secret
During a hearing today wherein Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo asked a judge to delay its upcoming trial against Uber in order to review new evidence, Reuters reports that one of Uber's attorneys said Waymo is seeking $2.6 billion for the alleged theft of one of the trade secrets listed in its complaint. That's a heck of a lot of money, especially considering that single trade secret -- and it's not clear which one it is -- is one of nine total. What damages Waymo is requesting for the other eight weren't disclosed.
Ex-Microsoft employee who leaked company secrets sentenced to three months in prison
Remember that time Microsoft rifled through someone's Hotmail account and then claimed it was totally OK? The incident -- and Microsoft's response -- was disturbing enough that it was easy to forget why the company accessed someone's account in the first place. The reason: That inbox belonged to a French blogger who had posted Windows 8 screenshots. As a result of that email probe, Microsoft was able to identify the leaker he had been corresponding with, a former employee named Alex Kibkalo who was then arrested for stealing trade secrets. Kibkalo plead guilty and now, three months later, he's been sentenced: he will spend three months in prison (full ruling embedded below) Since the incident, Microsoft has vowed to follow stricter policies during investigations, though it stands by its actions in this particular case.
Paypal v. Google: a tawdry tale of trade secret misappropriation
Google and its poached Paypal employees got sued for trade secret misappropriation yesterday, but we didn't know the dirty details until now. A peek at PayPal's complaint reveals there's a bit more to the story. Apparently, Paypal and Google were in talks last year to use PayPal for payments in the Android Market. Osama Bedier was in charge of those negotiations for PayPal in October of 2010, when the deal was supposed to close, but was allegedly interviewing for a mobile payment position at Google at the same time (holy conflict of interest, Batman!). The complaint claims that Bedier initially rebuffed El Goog's advances, told PayPal of the job offer and professed that he would stay, but jumped ship a month later (bringing some PayPal coworkers with him) after being recruited by Stephanie Tilenius and the almighty dollar. Once it hired Osama, Google reportedly put the brakes on the PayPal deal and created Google Wallet. Then Google, Bedier, and Tilenius got slapped with a lawsuit. A brief rundown of the legal claims awaits you after the break.
PayPal swiftly slaps Google with mobile payment suit
Just this morning we reported on the rather jovial atmosphere at Google's big mobile payment announcement -- well, it looks like PayPal's prepared to bring an end to the celebration. According to Bloomberg, PayPal filed a suit against Google today in a California Superior Court, alleging that former PayPal executive, and one of this morning's MCs, Osama Bedier misappropriated the company's trade secrets. The suit further fingered Stephanie Tilenius, also formerly with PayPal, of violating the terms of her contract in recruiting Bedier. Though we've yet to get our hands on any clear details about which trade secrets PayPal's pointing to, we'd say the timing speaks volumes.
VoIP Inc. sues Google: alleges theft of trade secrets for click-to-call ads
Google's no stranger to the courtroom, and while their litigation with Oracle and Viacom has gotten all the publicity of late, VoIP Inc. -- perhaps in a move to help pay off its bankruptcy creditors -- has joined in the litigious fun by suing the search giant for stealing trade secrets. VoIP alleges Google entered a license agreement with one of its subsidiaries in 2005 for technology that allows users to click online ads to call the advertiser directly over the internet -- because, you know, the unwashed masses are just dying to chat with the makers of PajamaJeans. Google later said that VoIP violated its nondisclosure agreement by talking about the deal and killed the relationship, but VoIP claims the boys and girls in Mountain View used its tech to create click-to-call ads in a 2006 deal with eBay and Skype. The litigation is just getting started, so we've yet to see the complaint or Google's response, but we feel certain VoIP has asked for a princely sum as punishment for these transgressions. Time will tell if Google decides to cut a check, so stay tuned.
Motorola sues Huawei and several former employees for stealing wireless trade secrets
Man, if you thought the lawsuit action in the mobile space was crazy before, well, you ain't seen nothing yet -- Motorola just sued Huawei and over a dozen former employees for conspiring to steal its wireless trade secrets and other proprietary technology over a period of years starting in 2001. Yeah, it's crazy. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2008 against four former Motorola engineers and a company called Lemko, all of whom Motorola accused of conspiring to stealing trade secrets related to wireless technology. After years of discovery in the case, it appears that Motorola realized the conspiracy went much deeper than it originally thought, leading the company to file a new complaint on July 16th, in which it named Huawei and nine additional former employees, who allegedly schemed to steal plans for a 3G base station called the SC300. According to the complaint, part of the scheme was ultimately blown up when one of the employees was arrested by Customs at O'Hare airport en route to China with $30,000 in cash and over 1,000 pages of documentation regarding Motorola's various communications networking tech, while another employee was caught buying Motorola phones in bulk and sending unlock codes and dump files to Lemko for reverse engineering purposes. Motorola also says that it doesn't yet know the exact relationship between Lemko, Huawei and some of the former employees because "file destruction software" was installed and run on computers before they were turned over as evidence, but the company claims that Huawei was aware it was receiving proprietary Motorola information the entire time it was in contact with the former employees. Yes, it's all very juicy -- we'll be watching this one closely.
Apple: What iPad freight records?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Apple 2.0 is reporting that Apple has taken steps to hide ocean shipping data for its iPad. Several business intelligence companies exist that collect, analyze, and resell data of a company's shipping records. This data is sold to the company's competitors in hope that they can glean information on how well a certain product is doing by extrapolating potential sales data from the shipping records. Companies like Trade Privacy also exist to protect trade data. Trade Privacy has stated that in anticipation of the March iPad launch, Apple has blocked its bills of lading and other import records from public access. "Apple is the only major electronics company so far to have protected their import data," Trade Privacy CEO Andrew Park told DeWitt. "Similar companies like Microsoft, Sony and Google continue to import with their product data exposed to the public." It's unclear whether Apple is a Trade Privacy client or if Trade Privacy just has knowledge of Apple's steps to retain its iPad shipping privacy. Apple was reportedly alarmed two years ago by media reports that predicted the arrival of the iPhone 3G before it had been announced based on data from Import Genius – a firm that collects business intelligence data on a company's shipping records and resells that data to competitors. "Apple was caught off guard and took swift action to protect their trade-secrets from competitors," Park told DeWitt. Given Apple's history of cloak and dagger tactics, safeguarding its shipping data for the much-hyped iPad should surprise few.
Ex-Intel employee busted for trying to take secrets to AMD
Another day, another disgruntled ex-employee trying to schelp stolen trade secrets. This time it's a former Intel engineer named Biswahoman Pani, who nabbed 13 files containing over 100 pages of internal Intel design documents drawings on his way to a new gig at AMD. The FBI got involved when another Intel employee noticed some funny business on system access logs, but so far Biswahoman has denied everything -- although his passport's been confiscated and he never got to take that AMD job. Crime don't pay, kids.
Former HP exec pleads guilty to stealing IBM trade secrets
Well, that didn't take long. Atul Malhotra, the HP executive charged with stealing printer market data when he left IBM and sending it to his new colleagues at HP with the genius-level subject line "For Your Eyes Only," has pled guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Malhotra probably made the right choice -- he specifically requested the information just before he left IBM and HP itself investigated and turned him in when he was found sending it around, so the case against him was pretty airtight. It's not clear what his plea deal is, but sentencing is scheduled for October 29, and he can get up to 10 years in the clink with a fine of up to a quarter-million dollars. Crime don't pay, kids.
Former HP VP charged with stealing IBM trade secrets
The printer market isn't exactly full of the most interesting news, but it's still big money, and big money tends to bring out the worst in people -- like former HP VP Atul Malhotra, who was just charged with stealing trade secrets from his former employer IBM and emailing them to other HP execs. Apparently Malhotra requested some confidential sales data two months before he went from the three-letter company to the two-letter one, and when he got there he hit up some other senior execs with the files -- marking the subject line "For Your Eyes Only." Yeah, that's an effective way to keep a lid on things. Malhotra was fired from HP in 2006, so all this went down some time ago, and HP says it actually conducted an internal investigation about the matter before firing Malhotra and reporting the theft to both IBM and the authorities. Sure, sure -- but we'll know what's up when the next HP AIO is running a Cell chip.
Posdata employee tried to sell WiBro secrets to US
While it may look easy (and astonishingly lucrative) to pull a case of high-stakes espionage, one South Korean and three US-based individuals are learning the hard way that crime doesn't pay. The Seoul Central Prosecutors Office is accusing an unnamed employee of Posdata Co., a developer of WiBro, "of sending email with proprietary information to three former employees who live in the US." Additionally, it was suggested that the trade secrets (which cost about $95 million to fully develop) were being offered up "for around $190 million" to an unnamed US company. All in all, four culprits were arrested in the ordeal, and while "some data" was transferred, the boys in blue caught on and stopped the gig before any major secrets were divulged. Should've tried the bag drop method, eh?
