More Kolon Troubles

We’ve reported on it a bunch, but now there’s more trouble in the case involving theft of trade secrets from DuPont by South Korea’s Kolon Industries.


The US Attorney in Richmond has indicted the company and five officials, charging them with trade secrets theft. According to the Business Week report here the indictment includes a forfeiture claim seeking at least $225 million in alleged criminal proceeds from the company.

Civil trade secrets cases are bad enough. Criminal ones should be avoided at all costs.

Huawei – Another Side of the Story

We covered this one earlier, so it’s only proper to give the other side of the story.


Farhad Manjoo, in Slate, says that whether a given piece of technology is dangerous is not determined by the nationality of the company that makes it.

As Manjoo puts it:

In reality, most devices are from everywhere. Your Android smartphone was designed in Korea, assembled in China, runs an operating system created in California, and works on a cellular carrier owned by a firm based in Germany. If you’re worried about a certain company’s connections to China, you should be worried about pretty much every company in the tech industry—they all have large operations there, and, as a result of those operations, they’ve all cut certain less-than-transparent deals with Chinese authorities.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/10/huawei_zte_are_chinese_telecom_firms_really_a_danger_to_national_security.html

Huawei – Any Old Tech Company or Trade Secrets Threat?

On the heels of a recent report on 60 Minutes, Reuters (from LiveMint) reports on the controversy concerning China’s Huawei, the world’s second-largest maker of telecommunications gear.

The report quoted Rep. Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee: “If I were an American company today ... and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property; if you care about your consumers’ privacy and you care about the national security of the United States of America.”

The committee is expected to release a report on the company later today (10/8/12).

We’ll get a summary up as soon as it’s released.

According to Reuters, Huawei has rejected charges that its expansion in the US poses a security risk and argues that it operates independently of the Chinese authorities.