Justice Delayed for Sinovel

Six years ago, in my first book, I described the case of Sinovel and American Superconductor as a clear case of theft of trade secret information that would make a really good book, all by itself.  It has international intrigue, long trials in China (leading to the end with “not enough evidence to prosecute”), stolen software by an ex-employee who left his access open to his account when he moved on from the company, payoffs from Sinovel, and all the good stuff that likely came out in court in a small town in Wisconsin, USA.   That is good place for this to play out.

Small town people understand these kinds of issues better than people in New York City, Chicago, or Washington D.C. for that matter.  American Superconductor suffered huge losses, parts of them directly from Sinovel which used to be one of its best customers until the software was stolen.  Then, Sinovel cancelled its orders and American Superconductor wondered why.  It took awhile to find out, get that to court, and actually win.  Sinovel was using that stolen software the whole time.  You get the picture, one not lost on the US Federal court.

Only, I have to ask, why did it take so long to get this to, and through, a court?  This is why the Chinese can steal our trade secrets and compete with companies using their own inventions.  The Chinese drug his out in their courts, but that is understandable.  They were delaying an embarrassingly open case of theft of software, source code that is increasingly popular in China.  Why not steal source code?  It saves a lot of work.  When the Chinese tried to get it to work in other equipment, the theft was discovered.  This is what happens when you steal something you are not smart enough to invent yourself.  There is a steeper learning curve for the application of the software.

This is happening every day in 100 different places and we are not as inquisitive as American Superconductor, nor do we follow through to get the case to court.  We will find out whether it was worth all that trouble when the awards are made.    See also https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-sentenced-economic-espionage-and-theft-trade-secret-us-company for a new case on a similar theft of software.