"Prosecutors say the men planned to start a microprocessor company with the Chinese government. The men allegedly stole microchip blueprints and computer aided design scripts from Sun Microsystems Inc., NEC Electronics Corp., Transmeta Corp. and Trident Microsystems Inc."
mercurynews.com
"The sentencing is the latest in a string of cases in Silicon Valley - most are still winding their way through the courts - that revolve around the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 or attempts by Chinese-born business(people) to defraud U.S. companies."
"On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel sentenced Shan to prison for two years. But Fogel said Shan didn't have to serve more time, considering that he had already spent about two years in prison."
Wow, only two years for IP theft. Go figure ! Meanwhile, the guy was probably on salary by China so no loss to him. Geez, with weak IP rules, why not do it again? And again, and again. Between these guys and the foreign 'art' students (that were actually engineers, deported without fines), the Valley is crawling with these obnoxious types, of course the US govt could care less as evident by the weak IP rules.
Further, USA companies can now start divisions in China and simply let them steal IP for free without any legal consequences.
On a different note, I noticed a so-called VC firm in SJ that was a front for IP theft for China has been closed up for some time now. Tsk. |
