MILWAUKEE (AP) - A software engineer from China has been charged in federal court in Milwaukee with stealing trade secrets from his former employer.
Tan Liu, 45, has been charged with six counts of stealing trade secrets and six counts of possessing those secrets.
He’s accused of stealing information about new Rockwell Automation products in development. A federal indictment issued Tuesday alleges that Liu copied thousands of files, including code and designs for Rockwell products that had not been released, to a flash drive in 2014 after informing his superiors that he was leaving his job.
Liu admitted to copying the files and told Rockwell superiors that he needed them for a job interview in Colorado, according to the indictment. Rockwell contacted the FBI, which obtained a search warrant to search Liu’s home in Pewaukee, and then seized computer and digital storage equipment.
Rockwell spokeswoman Darice Brown tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (https://bit.ly/25fCgbY ) that the company doesn’t believe the stolen information ever made it into the wrong hands.
“We take very seriously the trust placed in us by our customers, investors and employees to safeguard intellectual property,” she said. “No confidential customer information” was lost.
Liu is the third Chinese citizen charged by the FBI with taking proprietary information from major employers in the Milwaukee area since 2013.
Another Chinese engineer pleaded guilty in 2014 in federal court to stealing trade secrets from a GE Health Care subsidiary. A Chinese cancer researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin was charged in 2013 with economic espionage before later pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, https://www.jsonline.com
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