Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s largest telecommunications company, and CNEX Labs Inc. went to trial this week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas over dueling allegations of trade secret theft relating to semiconductor chip technology behind solid-state drives. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. et al v. Huang et al, No.
China
Huawei in Hot Water: Trump Declares National Emergency
On Wednesday, May 15th, President Trump declared a national emergency via executive order over threats against American technology. The order authorized Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in consultation with various other agency heads to block transactions involving information or communications technology posing an “unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”
The…
China Strengthens Trade Secret Protections Ahead of Trade Negotiations
On April 23rd, 2019, China’s Standing Committee on the National People’s Congress adopted amendments to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, significantly strengthening China’s protection of trade secrets. The bolstering of intellectual property safeguards in China comes in advance of important trade negotiations between China and the international community, including the United States. The changes to the…
Two Men Indicted for Alleged Theft of GE Trade Secrets for Turbine Technology
On April 18, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York unsealed an indictment accusing Zheng Xiaoqing, a former senior engineer for steam turbine design at GE, and Zhang Zhaoxi, a Chinese national, of conspiring to steal GE’s design data and models, engineering drawings, material specifications, configuration files, and other proprietary trade…
Trade Secret Theft on Autopilot
Autonomous vehicle technology, while still young, is already a major catalyst of trade secrets-related litigation. In 2018, Uber settled a lawsuit alleging theft of self-driving technology trade secrets from Waymo (Google’s self-driving car spinoff) for $245 million. With the future of the automotive market (and trillions of dollars) at stake, self-driving technology trade secrets are…
U.S. Continues to Take Strong Action to Combat against Chinese Economic Espionage
Despite continued trade talks with China, the federal government continues to aggressively pursue efforts to prevent and hold Chinese companies accountable for trade secret theft and economic espionage. As described below, in the last month alone, the U.S. Government has taken three very decisive actions in combating the threat.
- The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee announced the
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