NVIDIA faces accusations of trade secret theft! Video conference exposed evidence, and the employee involved admitted the crime

Nvidia just held a video conference, but ended up facing prosecution? ? ?

Yes, and the trigger was just a few computer screenshots.

Latest news, auto parts leader Valeo (Valeo) sued Nvidia for stealing trade secrets.

Valeo employees discovered during a video conference that Valeo’s source code file appeared on the shared screen of NVIDIA employees, and they immediately took screenshots to collect evidence.

Next, the German police discovered a large number of Valeo's internal documents at the employee's home and computer

In September this year, the employee was found to have illegally obtained, used and disclosed Valeo trade secrets, fined 14,400 euros (equivalent to nearly 120,000 yuan).

But when Valeo wanted to further hold Nvidia accountable

Nvidia quit.

They stated that they had no previous knowledge of the behavior of the employees involved and had no interest in Valeo’s so-called trade secrets.

Therefore, Valeo recently formally filed a lawsuit in the federal court in San Jose, California. At present, Nvidia has not responded yet

Employees jumped ship and took away a large number of internal documents

The origin of the story is a man named Mohammad Moniruzzaman, we affectionately call him "Brother Mexico"

Mexico started working at Valeo.

Mainly responsible for software development of assisted driving and parking.

Valeo is a world-renowned Tier 1 and one of the world's major suppliers of assisted driving sensors. Its mass-produced products include ultrasonic sensors, cameras, millimeter-wave radars and sensor cleaning systems.

One out of every three new cars in the world is equipped with an advanced driver assistance system with Valeo technology. In addition, Valeo is also the world's first lidar supplier to achieve large-scale mass production.

According to Valeo, Mexico downloaded all of Valeo's advanced parking and assistance "

without authorization" in early 2021 Driving system source code, as well as a large number of internal Word, PPT, PDF and technology-related Excel.

In August of the same year, Mexico resigned from Valeo and joined Nvidia,

also engaged in software development.

In March 2022, Nvidia and Valeo were both suppliers of an automobile manufacturer’s assisted driving parking project. The former was responsible for project software development and the latter provided sensor hardware.

In an online video conference on March 8, 2022, Mexico showed his PPT to another company. At this time, he had become an employee of Nvidia.

However, when he When trying to reduce the size of the PPT, he accidentally exposed the Valeo source code file that was still open on his computer, and the file path was displayed as "ValeoDocs"

How to participate in the meeting Leo employees discovered the problem immediately and took screenshots before Mexico noticed.

#Later, the German police also discovered in Mexico’s home that he had nailed Valeo’s internal documents to the wall of his office. Valeo stated in the lawsuit that this shows that he used Valeo's information as a reference when working for Nvidia. At the same time, a large number of Valeo files and software were also found in his confiscated computer.

In September 2023, Mexico was found to have illegally obtained, used, and disclosed Valeo’s trade secrets. He himself also admitted these behaviors

.

Valeo stated in the indictment that Nvidia attempted to use the stolen information to achieve market breakthroughs, which made technology investments meaningless and hindered the development of innovation.

So what does NVIDIA say?

In June 22, the German law firm representing NVIDIA sent a letter stating that NVIDIA had no knowledge of

before reporting the incident to the company in Mexico.

And they said that Mexico and Nvidia said that "the relevant code is only stored locally and cannot be accessed by other Nvidia employees." also emphasized that

Nvidia has no interest in Valeo’s code or so-called trade secrets

; and has deleted the code contributed by Mexico.

Valeo is not satisfied with this response

They believe that Nvidia has benefited from it

, which can save millions of dollars in development costs. Moreover, these codes written by Brother Mo have long been integrated into the database through multiple internal edits and iterations. It is impossible for

to be completely deleted

. You must know that in the field of automotive software platforms, Valeo and Nvidia are competitors.

Valeo’s indictment states that as cars require more computing power, Nvidia also wants a share of the pie. In 2015, they launched a system platform (NVIDA Drive) that supports advanced automotive technology. “This was done decades after Valeo began to innovate assisted driving.”

And the indictment directly states According to Dao, Valeo has been in a leading position in the core technology field of the automotive industry for a century. Relatively speaking, Nvidia is a "newcomer" in the automotive field.

Currently, Nvidia has not responded to this.

Valeo is also seeking damages and a ban on Nvidia and its employees from using or sharing trade secrets.

The time for trial and prosecution has not yet been announced

Some people joked that the risk of remote working seems to still exist

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