A Texas jury on Wednesday ruled that Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為) stole trade secrets from a Silicon Valley start-up, but jurors declined to levy damages, saying Huawei did not benefit from the theft.
The jury in US District Court in Sherman, Texas, also rejected Huawei’s claims that Cnex Labs Inc cofounder Yiren Huang (黃義仁) stole its technology while he worked at a Huawei subsidiary.
Huawei is embroiled in a trade dispute between China and the US, which has accused Chinese companies such as Huawei of committing forced technology transfers and stealing trade secrets.
The Cnex case is not directly related to that trade dispute, although it is overseen by the same federal judge, Amos Mazzant III, who is assigned to a Huawei lawsuit against the US government.
Huawei says that a ban on federal agencies and contractors buying its equipment is unconstitutional.
Cnex general counsel Matthew Gloss called Huawei a “bully,” adding: “We’re a small company. We didn’t seek this fight... They wanted to shut us down.”
In a statement, Huawei called the Cnex ruling a “mixed verdict” and said it was considering its next steps.
Cnex, which has financial backing from Microsoft Corp and Dell Technologies Inc, works on solid-state drives, the types of storage common in smartphones and other popular devices. They start faster and are more reliable than traditional hard disks, although they are typically more expensive.
Huawei said that Huang started Cnex three days after leaving Huawei’s Futurewei Technologies Inc unit in 2013 and began filing patent applications less than a month later based on work he did there.
Huawei also accused Huang of poaching its employees and alleged that one was caught downloading thousands of pages of confidential Huawei documents.
The jury found that Huang did violate a contract provision regarding disclosing patent applications, but it awarded no damages after concluding that Futurewei did not prove harm.
Lawyers for Cnex countered that Futurewei hired Huang in 2011 as a pretext to steal his ideas.
In court documents, San Jose, California-based Cnex accused Huawei deputy chairman Eric Xu (徐直軍) of directing an effort to reverse-engineer Cnex technology.
Huawei lawyers denied the accusation, but its chief legal officer, Song Liuping (宋柳平), yesterday said that a proposal by a US senator to block the company from pursuing damages in US patent courts would threaten the global intellectual property system that supports technology development.
The proposal followed news reports that Huawei was asking for US$1 billion from US phone carrier Verizon Communications Inc.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed curbs on Huawei’s access to US technology amid tensions over Beijing’s development ambitions.
“If such a legislative proposal were to be passed, it would be a catastrophe for global innovation. It would have terrible consequences,” Song told a news conference in Shenzhen, China.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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