A former senior engineer at Coca-Cola Co was on Thursday charged in Tennessee with stealing trade secrets worth an estimated US$120 million to give to a Chinese company, the US Department of Justice announced.
US national You Xiaorong (游曉蓉) allegedly stole technology for valuable bisphenol A (BPA)-free packaging jointly owned by several companies, including a former “Atlanta-based” employer that was unnamed in the indictment.
A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, whose headquarters is in Atlanta, declined to comment on the case, but confirmed that You previously worked for the company.
“Because this is a pending legal matter, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further,” she said.
You conspired with Chinese national Liu Xiangchen (劉向程) and an unnamed relative of Liu’s to steal formulations for food packing coatings that are free of the widely-used chemical BPA, which scientists have discovered in recent years is harmful to human health, the indictment said.
Alternatives to BPA are scarce and highly valuable in the food packing industry.
Liu wanted the technology for his firm, which was planning to develop production lines for BPA-free packing, the indictment said.
In exchange, he offered You a job and also promised to help her win one of China’s highest awards for research and innovation, the “Thousand Talents” award.
The prestigious prize honors Chinese who return from study and work abroad bringing back with them technology that would advance China’s economy.
US intelligence officials say the program also aims to encourage Chinese abroad to steal technology to bring to China.
You “is accused of an egregious, premeditated theft and transfer of trade secrets worth more than US$100 million for the purpose of setting up a Chinese company that would compete with the American companies from which the trade secrets were stolen,” said James Douglas Overbey, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
“Unfortunately, China continues to use its national programs, like the ‘Thousand Talents,’ to solicit and reward the theft of our nation’s trade secrets and intellectual property,” Overbey said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained