There's been a lot of hybrid technology-stealing news of late. First, Ukranian emigrant Alex Severinski won a suit against Toyota that accused the automaker of using the technology he developed in its Toyota Prius, for which he was awarded royalties. Now, a former General Motors worker has been accused of stealing documents detailing aspects of GM's hybrid technology and attempting to sell them to Chinese automaker Chery Automobile. According to The New York Times "Wheels" blog:
"From December 2003 to May 2006, the indictment says, Shannon Du, 51, and her husband, Yu Qin, 49, conspired to possess trade secrets. In January 2005, Du accepted a severance package from GM and five days later copied thousands of pages of secret documentation onto a hard drive that belonged to a company that she and her husband had set up, called Millennium Technology International."The value of the allegedly stolen documents is reported to be around $40 million. The couple faces multiple charges: conspiracy to possess trade secrets, unauthorized possession of the same, wire fraud and -- in the husband's case -- obstruction of justice. It seems that Barbara McQuade, United States attorney for the eastern district of Michigan, will go after the couple in a big way. She's quoted in the "Wheels" piece as saying, “As our auto industry works to find new areas of innovation, such as hybrid technology, we will not tolerate the theft of our trade secrets from foreign competitors.”
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