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Samuel Straface thought he was the last one out the door one recent evening at the medical technology start-up he leads in suburban Boston.
But as he passed a glass-walled conference room on the second floor, Dr Straface says he saw a man he didn’t recognise, sitting by himself in front of two open laptops and a tablet device. He continued walking but then, feeling uneasy, he turned back.
The man was later identified as Dong Liu, a dual citizen of China and Canada. And his after-hours computing at Medrobotics is at the centre of an economic-espionage case brought by US prosecutors.
Mr Liu is in federal custody, charged with attempting to steal trade secrets and trying to gain unauthorised access to the company’s computer system, prosecutors said. If convicted of both charges, he could face a maximum sentence of 15 years’ jail.
“Mr Liu adamantly asserts his innocence and we fully expect he’ll be exonerated after a careful review of the evidence,” said Robert Goldstein, Mr Liu’s defence lawyer. The US attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts declined to comment on the case beyond details in court records.
Before his arrest, police said Mr Liu told them he was there to discuss doing business with the company — but Dr Straface says no one had scheduled a meeting.
The case against Mr Liu is part of a boom in federal prosecutions alleging theft or attempted theft of trade secrets from US companies or firms with American operations. Many of the cases involve a China connection.
FBI investigations and arrests for industrial espionage and violations of export-control laws, predominantly linked to the Chinese government, rose to a record high in 2015, according to a report last year for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
In May the Justice Department charged two Chinese citizens, four Americans and one Canadian with conspiring to steal trade secrets from an engineering firm on behalf of a Chinese company that makes a marine product for military and civilian use. All seven have pleaded not guilty. In another case federal prosecutors charged two Chinese citizens and three Americans last year with conspiring to steal trade secrets from drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline
and to provide them to companies doing business in China. Four of the five people pleaded not guilty, and the fifth was never arrested and is considered a fugitive.
At the request of US President Donald Trump, the US trade representative launched an investigation last month into Chinese efforts to secure US technology. The probe will examine whether the Chinese government is backing unauthorised intrusions into US corporate computer networks or cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets, the trade representative said.
Foreign theft of US trade secrets costs the US economy at least $US180 billion ($224bn) a year, according to a report this year from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, an independent, bipartisan group co-chaired by Jon Huntsman Jr, a former ambassador to China. “Cyber theft is a cheap way to avoid costly and time-intensive R&D that may simply be beyond the thieves’ capacity,” the report said, singling out China as a big culprit.
China’s main information office in Beijing declined to comment and its intellectual-property administration did not respond to a request for comment. Government officials previously have denied allegations Beijing takes part in or encourages the theft of trade secrets.
Medrobotics, of Raynham, Massachusetts, makes a snakelike robot designed to get to hard-to-reach places in the body during minimally invasive surgeries. The system was recently introduced to The Memorial Hospital in Adelaide.
Each machine costs $US1m, said Dr Straface, a neurophysiologist. He declined to disclose annual revenue of the privately held firm but said gaining access to the design of the product, plus versions under development, would be valuable to a third party.
“I was angry that someone would be so brazen to come into the facility and try to, potentially, allegedly steal from us something I’ve worked my heart and soul out for,” he said in an interview, his first public remarks on the case.
The August 30 affidavit said it was “too early to tell whether Mr Liu succeeded in obtaining any trade secrets or other corporate information”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/d3978234baf30825551bbc905e953df7
But as he passed a glass-walled conference room on the second floor, Dr Straface says he saw a man he didn’t recognise, sitting by himself in front of two open laptops and a tablet device. He continued walking but then, feeling uneasy, he turned back.
The man was later identified as Dong Liu, a dual citizen of China and Canada. And his after-hours computing at Medrobotics is at the centre of an economic-espionage case brought by US prosecutors.
Mr Liu is in federal custody, charged with attempting to steal trade secrets and trying to gain unauthorised access to the company’s computer system, prosecutors said. If convicted of both charges, he could face a maximum sentence of 15 years’ jail.
“Mr Liu adamantly asserts his innocence and we fully expect he’ll be exonerated after a careful review of the evidence,” said Robert Goldstein, Mr Liu’s defence lawyer. The US attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts declined to comment on the case beyond details in court records.
Before his arrest, police said Mr Liu told them he was there to discuss doing business with the company — but Dr Straface says no one had scheduled a meeting.
The case against Mr Liu is part of a boom in federal prosecutions alleging theft or attempted theft of trade secrets from US companies or firms with American operations. Many of the cases involve a China connection.
FBI investigations and arrests for industrial espionage and violations of export-control laws, predominantly linked to the Chinese government, rose to a record high in 2015, according to a report last year for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
In May the Justice Department charged two Chinese citizens, four Americans and one Canadian with conspiring to steal trade secrets from an engineering firm on behalf of a Chinese company that makes a marine product for military and civilian use. All seven have pleaded not guilty. In another case federal prosecutors charged two Chinese citizens and three Americans last year with conspiring to steal trade secrets from drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline
and to provide them to companies doing business in China. Four of the five people pleaded not guilty, and the fifth was never arrested and is considered a fugitive.
At the request of US President Donald Trump, the US trade representative launched an investigation last month into Chinese efforts to secure US technology. The probe will examine whether the Chinese government is backing unauthorised intrusions into US corporate computer networks or cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets, the trade representative said.
Foreign theft of US trade secrets costs the US economy at least $US180 billion ($224bn) a year, according to a report this year from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, an independent, bipartisan group co-chaired by Jon Huntsman Jr, a former ambassador to China. “Cyber theft is a cheap way to avoid costly and time-intensive R&D that may simply be beyond the thieves’ capacity,” the report said, singling out China as a big culprit.
China’s main information office in Beijing declined to comment and its intellectual-property administration did not respond to a request for comment. Government officials previously have denied allegations Beijing takes part in or encourages the theft of trade secrets.
Medrobotics, of Raynham, Massachusetts, makes a snakelike robot designed to get to hard-to-reach places in the body during minimally invasive surgeries. The system was recently introduced to The Memorial Hospital in Adelaide.
Each machine costs $US1m, said Dr Straface, a neurophysiologist. He declined to disclose annual revenue of the privately held firm but said gaining access to the design of the product, plus versions under development, would be valuable to a third party.
“I was angry that someone would be so brazen to come into the facility and try to, potentially, allegedly steal from us something I’ve worked my heart and soul out for,” he said in an interview, his first public remarks on the case.
The August 30 affidavit said it was “too early to tell whether Mr Liu succeeded in obtaining any trade secrets or other corporate information”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s/news-story/d3978234baf30825551bbc905e953df7
