Image: © laurencesoulez/Stock.adobe.com
European autotech company Valeo claims former employee Mohammad Moniruzzaman stole some of its source code to help Nvidia, where he works now.
The German arm of France-headquartered global automotive supplier Valeo has sued Nvidia for allegedly stealing its trade secrets and using them to benefit its position in the autotech market.
Valeo claims that one of its former software engineers, Mohammad Moniruzzaman, who now works for Nvidia, illegally downloaded “tens of thousands” of files and 6GB of source code relating to its advanced parking and driving assistance systems in early 2021.
According to the lawsuit filed earlier this month in a US district court in California, Moniruzzaman also took with him “scores” of Valeo Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files and Excel spreadsheets containing trade secrets.
These relate to the operation of ultrasonic sensors developed by Valeo to be competitive in the driving assistance software space, one that Nvidia has been making inroads into.
Months later, Moniruzzaman left Valeo to join Nvidia, working on the same project in a more senior role. Valeo claims that he took the stolen source and technical documents with him, implying that he intended to help Nvidia benefit from them.
“Though this theft initially went undetected for about six months after Moniruzzaman started working at Nvidia, Moniruzzaman’s and Nvidia’s luck eventually wore out,” the lawsuit reads.
What happened?
Valeo said that Moniruzzaman unintentionally revealed his possession of the source code and other trade secrets during a video call between the two companies’ teams while they were working together.
“Moniruzzaman, now employed by Nvidia, attended the videoconference call – along with four other Nvidia employees, all of whom reside in the United States and at least two of whom reside and work in this district—and shared his computer screen during the call,” the lawsuit reads.
“When he minimised the PowerPoint presentation he had been sharing, however, he revealed one of Valeo’s verbatim source code files open on his computer. So brazen was Moniruzzaman’s theft, the file path on his screen still read ‘ValeoDocs’”.
Valeo claims that its employees present during the video call immediately recognised the source code and took a screenshot before Moniruzzaman was alerted of his error.
“By then it was too late to cover his tracks,” the lawsuit goes on.
“An IT audit confirmed that prior to his departure, Moniruzzaman downloaded the entirety of Valeo’s parking and driving assistance source code files, breaching Valeo IT rules and policy, violating the law and misappropriating Valeo’s trade secrets.”
‘Trade secret misappropriation’
In what may complicate matters for Nvidia in this case, the Valeo lawsuit also claims that Moniruzzaman “admitted to stealing” software from his former employer and did not deny charges during an investigation by German police.
Now, Valeo wants injunctive relief and recovery of damages for what it calls “trade secret misappropriation” on the part of Nvidia and Moniruzzaman’s “brazen misconduct” in handing “illegitimate advantage” to his current employer.
“Nvidia’s attempts to take a shortcut to the marketplace by leveraging Valeo’s stolen software make costly investments in technology futile and harms innovation.”
Nvidia has gained a dominant hold in the AI chips market, which contributed to the company becoming the first chipmaker to be valued at $1trn in May. In the latest quarter, Nvidia saw its net income grow by more than 1,250pc.
But it hasn’t all been sunshine for the company, as one of its offices was reportedly raided in September by French authorities due to suspected “anticompetitive practices”.
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
