Richard Gelfond, the CEO of IMAX, was on Fox Business this morning and told a story of IP theft I had not heard before. He said that about "seven or eight years ago" they had an "ugly episode" with the Chinese government. A former employee of theirs, who was sponsored by the Chinese government, stole the technology for IMAX. He did not say how much of the technology was taken. This story has a ring to it that is familiar. Other cases I have heard about have used former employees- most dramatically, Sinovel which stole technology from a US company and used it for years before Chinese courts finally found Sinovel stole the technology. By that time, they had embedded it in their products. In that famous case, there were indicators the employee may have been bought off before he left the company.
This is a good reason to sharpen up those termination procedures and make sure corporate accounts are suspended or revoked when a person leaves the company. Before that, check to see if the person downloaded proprietary data that was sensitive IP.
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