(CN) — A former Google employee can’t dodge theft of trade secret charges over accusations that he stole information about artificial intelligence for two Chinese companies after a federal judge in San Francisco denied his motion to dismiss those charges on Wednesday.
The federal government claims 38-year-old Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, stole sensitive Google trade secrets and other confidential information while secretly affiliating himself with companies in the AI industry. He is accused of transferring files which included the foundational data for Google’s advanced supercomputing data centers, designed to support machine learning workloads and train and host large AI models, according to an indictment from last year.
Ding, a Chinese national, filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that he couldn’t be charged under the “espionage” statute, because no foreign government actually sponsored or coordinated the trade secret theft.
“First, there is no requirement in section 1831 that the foreign government have sponsored or coordinated the trade secret theft. The inclusion of the word ‘espionage’ in section 1831’s title does not change the fact that the text requires no such government interaction,” wrote U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, a Barack Obama appointee, in his order denying Ding’s motion.
Ding also claimed that economic espionage requires that he actually disclosed those secrets, which Ding argues he never was able to do. But Chhabria said his interpretation of the word “benefit” in the espionage statute didn’t hold up.
Chhabria determined that the statute doesn’t require disclosure, only the intent or knowledge that a trade secret theft will benefit a foreign government.
“The legislative history supports a broader reading of ‘benefit,’ noting that a benefit could also be reputational, strategic, or tactical,” Chhabria added. “This is especially apparent when comparing section 1832, which requires proof of an intent to ‘economically benefit,’ with section 1831, which only requires intent or knowledge that the trade secret theft will ‘benefit’ a foreign government.”
Ding also argued that his indictment does not sufficiently claim that he intended to benefit the Chinese government.
The feds say Ding was secretly affiliated with two Chinese technology companies, and in June 2022 received several emails from the CEO of an early-stage technology company indicating that Ding was taking on the role of chief technology officer.
Ding traveled to China on Oct. 29, 2022, and until March 25, 2023 was there participating in investor meetings to raise capital for the company, prosecutors say. Ding owned 20% of the company’s stock and founded his own technology company which touted the development of a software platform designed to accelerate learning workloads, such as in training large AI models.
Chaabria said the government provided an internal memo for Ding’s company that noted that they were marketing to and talking with public universities and municipal governments to encourage them to use the company’s services.
This sufficiently established Ding’s intent to directly provide services to government entities and satisfies the economic espionage charge, Chhabria wrote, but added the government’s other theories that Ding knew about China’s AI initiatives and intended to benefit the country by helping advance its domestic AI goals were shakier.
“The idea that Ding actually intended to benefit the PRC, as opposed to benefiting himself through an opportunity PRC was providing, seems dubious,” he wrote. “The first two theories will only work if the government proves that Ding intended or knew that his trade secret theft would benefit the PRC — not solely China as a country or Ding’s own economic interests.”
Google says it hired Ding as a software engineer in 2019 to help develop the software in its supercomputing data centers. He had access to confidential information, and on May 21, 2022 reportedly began secretly uploading trade secrets stored in Google’s network by copying the information into a personal Google Cloud account, prosecutors say. He reportedly continued periodic uploads of more than 500 files with confidential information until May 2, 2023.
Grant P. Fondo, Ding’s attorney, declined to comment.
Representatives of the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
