Huawei accused of conspiring to steal tech from US lab

American semiconductor company  CNEX Labs has accused  Huawei of recruiting a Chinese professor to help steal trade secrets.

CNEX and Huawei have been embroiled in a patent and trade secrets dispute in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas since 2017.

The California-based lab claimed last week that a Chinese professor colluding with Huawei had asked for one of the laboratory’s circuit boards as part of a research project he was working on.

CNEX claimed that, despite a non-disclosure agreement with the professor, details of the circuit board’s technical specifications were passed on to Huawei.

According to CNEX, the Chinese telecommunications company conspired with the professor to improperly conduct research using the American lab’s trade secrets.

“Huawei took CNEX’s proprietary and trade secret information and shared it with the personnel developing Huawei’s SSD controllers in violation of representations made to CNEX and restrictions placed on the distribution of CNEX’s technical information”, the court filing said.

CNEX’s claims are the latest in a string of allegations against Huawei.

In January, the US Department of Justice  filed 23 criminal charges against the company, claiming that Huawei implemented a rewards system to incentivise employees to steal trade secrets from competitors.

In December last year, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian police in Vancouver at the behest of US authorities. She faces charges of lying to banks and authorities in order to evade US sanctions on Iran.

WIPR has contacted CNEX, Huawei and Xiamen University for comment.

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