Huawei Technologies is fighting allegations around the world for stealing technologies from other companies. But in a Texas court case, the Chinese networking gear maker says it’s been the victim of such theft.
It claims a former engineer retrieve data and stole proprietary information. He did so to make a competing firm. Yiren “Ronnie” Huang contends Huawei stole from him and is now trying to damage his company, CNEX Labs.
A trial on the dispute, scheduled to begin June 3 in a courtroom about an hour north of Dallas, could shed light on some of the internal workings at China’s largest tech company. Huawei Technologies claimed the theft of its technology by a lawsuit. The tech giant is the target of criminal trade secret theft charges by the US government. Trump administration to block the company’s gear from telecommunications networks.
Notably, the case is more the type of dispute that’s increasingly common in the technology industry. The company hires a highly skilled worker only to see the person depart and start a competing business.
Perlson represented Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving car unit in a suit that claimed a former top engineer took the company’s “crown jewels” when he went to work at Uber Technologies, a case that ultimately settled. Similar suits have hit Silicon Valley, such as the now-ended blood feud between Cisco Systems and the upstart Arista Networks founded by former employees.
And it’s not just in the tech world. Similar disputes have arisen over lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, heavy equipment, and a process used in fabrics for diapers, tissues and tampons.
Huawei Technologies claim comes amid sensitive trade negotiations between the US and China. The Trump administration has blacklisted the gear maker from using American software and semiconductors for making smartphones and networking gear. In the wake of the ban, phone companies are scrapping plans to sell Huawei handsets.
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The court fight in Texas between Huawei and CNEX centres on solid state drives. These are made up of chips called Nand flash memory that store information on semiconductors. They access data much more quickly than traditional magnetic disk-based technology.
Huawei hired Huang at Huawei’s FutureWei unit in Santa Clara, California, in January 2011. His job was to oversee a group researching various storage technologies that could be integrated into Huawei’s networking products.
Huang says Huawei steal his inventions as part of an “ongoing effort for Chinese technological dominance”. He stayed with the firm for more than two years. Additionally, he formed CNEX with two former Marvell Technology Group executives less than a week after he left FutureWei.
CNEX General Counsel Matthew Gloss said, “Huawei is attempting to use the US federal court system in Texas to steal intellectual property created and developed by American semiconductor innovators”. The trial will shed light on the systematic and wide-ranging methods. Huawei has used to steal emerging and foundational data centre technology expected to support tomorrow’s 5G networks.
Several other FutureWei employees later jumped to CNEX, including one that Huawei says ex-employee was caught downloading thousands of documents. Huang filed one of his patent applications less than a month later.
CNEX, a Silicon Valley startup with financial backing from Microsoft and Dell Technologies, has won one important pretrial victory. District Court Judge Mazzant ruled April 2 that CNEX doesn’t have to turn over ownership of Huang’s patents and applications.
While the geopolitical battle over Huawei Technologies will stay outside the courtroom, Mazzant is deeply aware of them. The judge is also presiding over Huawei’s lawsuit against the US government. Judge is doing so over a law that restricts government agencies and contractors from buying Huawei equipment.
Mazzant was nominated by President Barack Obama. He is best known for blocking an Obama-era overtime rule. Also, he delayed the six-game suspension imposed on NFL player Ezekiel Elliott following domestic violence allegations.
