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11 July 2018

Engineer stole information for US Navy prototypes, says jury

A US jury has found electrical engineer Jared Sparks guilty of stealing trade secrets after he took files relating to prototypes being developed for the US Navy.

Yesterday, July 10, the US Department of Justice announced that a federal jury at the US District Court for the District of Connecticut found Sparks guilty of six counts of theft of trade secrets, six counts of upload of trade secrets, and one count of transmission of trade secrets.

Sparks had worked at defence contractor LBI Inc, a company that designed and built unmanned underwater vehicles for the US Navy and deployable ice buoys used to gather weather data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

While working at LBI, Sparks collaborated with Massachusetts-based software company Charles River Analytics (CRA), which developed software to be integrated into LBI’s unmanned underwater vehicles.

In 2011, Sparks began exploring employment opportunities with CRA.

He was hired by CRA in January 2012 but, before joining, Sparks uploaded thousands of LBI files to his personal account with Dropbox, a cloud-based file-storage application.

Sparks uploaded accounting and engineering files, along with photographs related to designs and renderings used to fabricate and manufacture the unmanned underwater vehicles and buoys.

A grand jury returned a 29-count indictment charging Sparks with various offences stemming from this alleged scheme.

Acting assistant attorney general John Cronan said that the verdict sends a “clear message” that the Department of Justice is “committed to protecting American IP and will aggressively prosecute those who steal it”.

Sparks’s sentencing has not yet been scheduled but each of the offences carries a maximum term of ten years in prison.

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9 July 2018   A US court has imposed a maximum statutory fine of $1.5 million on a Chinese wind turbine maker, after it was convicted of stealing trade secrets from an American company earlier this year.