Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets; BBC, January 16, 2023

 Nicholas Yong , BBC News; Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets

"It is part of a broader struggle as China strives to gain technological knowhow to power its economy and its challenge to the geopolitical order, while the US does its best to prevent a serious competitor to American power from emerging.

The theft of trade secrets is attractive because it allows countries to "leapfrog up global value chains relatively quickly - and without the costs, both in terms of time and money, of relying completely on indigenous capabilities", Nick Marro of the Economist Intelligence Unit told the BBC.

Last July FBI director Christopher Wray told a gathering of business leaders and academics in London that China aimed to "ransack" the intellectual property of Western companies so it can speed up its own industrial development and eventually dominate key industries. 

He warned that it was snooping on companies everywhere "from big cities to small towns - from Fortune 100s to start-ups, folks that focus on everything from aviation, to AI, to pharma"."

Trade Secret Theft: Investigation Into Theft of Intellectual Property from GE Leads to Two Guilty Pleas; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), July 29, 2020

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Trade Secret Theft

Investigation Into Theft of Intellectual Property from GE Leads to Two Guilty Pleas

"The investigation showed that Delia and Sernas stole elements of a computer program and mathematical model that GE used to expertly calibrate the turbines used in power plants.

Since GE also manufactured the turbines, they had complete understanding of them. “The company had a skill set and engineering-level details that no one else could offer,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York Wayne Myers.

Because of their expertise, power plant operators from all over the world hired GE’s performance engineers to help their turbines achieve peak performance for the climate and conditions in which they were installed. The service could increase the efficiency of the turbines enough to substantially lower the plants’ operating costs."

Self-Driving to Federal Prison: The Trade Secret Theft Saga of Anthony Levandowski Continues; Lexology, August 13, 2020

Seyfarth Shaw LLP - Robert Milligan and Darren W. Dummit; Self-Driving to Federal Prison: The Trade Secret Theft Saga of Anthony Levandowski Continues

"Judge Aslup, while steadfastly respectful of Levandowski as a good person and as a brilliant man who the world would learn a lot listening to, nevertheless found prison time to be the best available deterrent to engineers and employees privy to trade secrets worth billions of dollars to competitors: “You’re giving the green light to every future engineer to steal trade secrets,” he told Levandowski’s attorneys. “Prison time is the answer to that.” To further underscore the importance of deterring similar behavior in the high stakes tech world, Judge Aslup required Levandowski to give the aforementioned public speeches describing how he went to prison."

[Podcast] Trade Secrets: Protection and Defense; Fish & Richardson, March 26, 2020

[Podcast] Leeron Kalay, Seth Sproul, Katie Prescott, Fish & Richardson; Trade Secrets: Protection and Defense

"Trade secrets derive economic value primarily from being unknown by others. But to establish the existence of a protectable trade secret, companies must demonstrate that they have taken reasonable steps to maintain the secrecy of the information in question. A robust trade secret strategy can both protect a company’s trade secrets while also allowing it to defend itself from accusations of trade secret theft. Companies must consider this strategy at all times, including:

• When recruiting and hiring new employees
• When handling employee departures
• When collaborating with business partners and prospects

In this webinar, Fish attorneys Katherine Prescott, Leeron Kalay, and Seth Sproul discuss how to craft a trade secret strategy that protects your company from accusations of trade secret theft while also protecting your company’s trade secrets.

Click the link to download a copy of the webinar slides.

Presenters: Leeron Kalay, Seth Sproul, Katie Prescott"

It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war.; The Washington Post, December 14, 2018

Michael Morell and David Kris, The Washington Post; It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war.

"Michael Morell, a Post contributing columnist, is a former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. David Kris is a former assistant attorney general for national security and co-founder of Culper Partners consulting firm.

The United States is in an escalating technological cold war with China. It’s not centered on tariffs and trade, which President Trump often cites; instead, it involves both China’s use of technology to steal information and the theft of technology itself."

U.S. charges Chinese spies and their recruited hackers in conspiracy to steal trade secrets; The Washington Post, October 30, 2018

Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post; U.S. charges Chinese spies and their recruited hackers in conspiracy to steal trade secrets

[Kip Currier: Just lectured on Trade Secrets in my IP course yesterday. So it was timely to see this recent development after class.

The U.S. and E.U. have both beefed up trade secret protection and prosecution mechanisms in just the past two years: the U.S., with the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016, and the E.U., via its E.U. Trade Secrets Directive (EUTSD).]

"The Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed charges against 10 Chinese spies, hackers and others accused of conspiring to steal sensitive commercial airline and other secrets from U.S. and European companies.

The indictment marks the third time since September that the United States has brought charges against Chinese intelligence officers and their recruits for stealing American intellectual property.

“This is just the beginning,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said. “Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard America’s ingenuity and investment.”"

FBI Agent Points to Need for Protecting Intellectual Property From Theft; KTIC Radio, August 22, 2018

Chris Clayton DTN Ag Policy Editor, KTIC Radio; FBI Agent Points to Need for Protecting Intellectual Property From Theft

"HIGH-PROFILE AG THEFTS

Agriculture has seen its share of high-profile thefts, some coming out of labs, while others come right out of cornfields. Nichols pointed to the case of Mo Hailong, who was sentenced in 2016 to three years in federal prison for stealing biotech corn seeds from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto in the Midwest.

As DTN has reported in the past, before Hailong was caught, FBI agents said he shipped over 340 pounds of corn seeds from Iowa to his home in Florida. Authorities aren’t certain where the seeds went from there, but it was easy to conclude the seeds were sent to China. The FBI also recorded some of Hailong’s phone calls back to China, in which he and a Chinese plant breeder talked about “using the foreigners’ technology to beat them.” Citing the need to boost biotechnology in China, one of Hailong’s co-conspirators said, “There is a serious need for a national hero.”"

Trade Secret Thief Hid Files In Digital Photo Of Sunset; Intellectual Property Watch, August 2, 2018

Intellectual Property Watch; Trade Secret Thief Hid Files In Digital Photo Of Sunset

"The criminal complaint alleges that on or about July 5, Zheng, an engineer employed by General Electric, used an elaborate and sophisticated means to remove electronic files containing GE’s trade secrets involving its turbine technologies. Specifically, Zheng is alleged to have used steganography to hide data files belonging to GE into an innocuous looking digital picture of a sunset, and then to have e-mailed the digital picture, which contained the stolen GE data files, to Zheng’s e-mail account."

Judge Orders Chinese Wind-Turbine Maker To Pay $59 Million For Stealing Trade Secrets; NPR, July 6, 2018

Jim Zarroli, NPR; Judge Orders Chinese Wind-Turbine Maker To Pay $59 Million For Stealing Trade Secrets

"A federal judge has ordered China's largest wind-turbine firm, Sinovel, to pay $59 million for stealing trade secrets from a Massachusetts-based technology company.

Last January, Sinovel was found guilty of stealing trade secrets in federal criminal court in Madison, Wis. The company paid an Austria-based employee of American Superconductor Corp. to steal its source code for software that powered wind turbines.

This kind of intellectual property theft has been highlighted by the Trump administration as a reason for levying 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods entering the U.S., which began on Friday. China retaliated with tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods."