Former Google engineer convicted of stealing AI trade secrets for Chinese companies asks for new trial

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A former Google software engineer convicted of stealing proprietary information on Google’s artificial intelligence technology for Chinese companies asked a federal judge Tuesday to overturn his conviction and order a new trial, arguing the government failed to prove the charges against him.

Linwei Ding was accused of stealing trade secrets from Google, which hired him in 2019 as a software engineer to help develop its supercomputing data centers. He was charged in 2024 with seven counts of theft of trade secrets and seven counts of economic espionage, each corresponding to one of the seven categories of trade secrets.

A San Francisco jury found Ding guilty of all 14 counts of theft of trade secrets and economic espionage following a two-week trial in January.

Ding filed a motion for a new trial and mistrial, along with a motion for acquittal in February, contesting all trade secret and economic espionage charges.

At the hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said he was “skeptical” of the economic espionage charges, telling the government they faced an “uphill battle” to defend them.

The Barack Obama appointee specifically highlighted his concerns with the government charging Ding with economic espionage based on his downloading of the trade secret documents from the cloud to his personal laptop in December 2023. Chhabria pressed the government on whether the December 2023 downloads were theft of trade secrets, a required element to prove economic espionage.

“I’m not sure it would have made sense looking at the statute to charge him with theft of trade secrets based on the downloading in December 2023 because he had already stolen the trade secrets,” the judge said. “In other words, without authorization, he appropriated the trade secrets in May 2023; that’s before then, he already committed the crime. He already appropriated the trade secrets.”

Ding began transferring files in the spring of 2022, copying information from internal Google documents to the notes application on his company-issued laptop, converting the notes to PDFs and uploading them to a personal cloud account. In total, the government said Ding transferred 1,255 documents, comprising an estimated 14,000 pages, between the spring of 2022 and 2023.

Ding additionally downloaded the documents from his personal cloud account to his personal laptop in December 2023, as the walls began to close in on him at Google. The case focused on 105 documents the government said contain Google trade secrets related to the company’s supercomputing data centers.

Chhabria asked the government whether the uploads of documents between the spring of 2022 and 2023, and the downloads in December 2023, were two separate crimes, or one ongoing crime.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roland Chang argued the uploads and the downloads were “two separate instances of the same crime,” as Ding did not have the authority in either situation to take the documents from Google and had the intent to benefit another entity.

Chang added there were multiple instances of Ding committing the crime of theft of trade secrets, and the government focused on two categories: uploading and downloading of documents.

Chhabria pushed back, emphasizing each upload could be charged as theft of trade secrets because Ding was uploading different information each time. However, he was doubtful that Ding’s downloading of the files in December counted as theft of trade secrets, because it was the same information he had already stolen from Google.

“I don’t understand how moving the stuff he already stole to a different medium can be considered theft of trade secrets,” he said.

Grant Fondo of Goodwin Procter, an attorney for Ding, agreed with Chhabria’s tentative views that the downloads do not constitute theft of trade secrets. He added the economic espionage charges would not apply to the uploads between the spring of 2022 and 2023, because they were not done with the intent to benefit the People’s Republic of China.

On rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey Boome said there was evidence Ding had touted his relationships with Chinese instrumentalities in November 2023, and it would be “remarkable for the court to find that no rational juror would find that Ding had in his mind to do the thing we know he did months prior.”

However, Chhabira responded it was “too great a leap” to conclude that interacting with Chinese instrumentalities in November meant Ding had intended to benefit them the previous spring.

The judge ordered the parties to submit additional briefing on the issue and set another hearing for June 16. Ding is scheduled to be sentenced on July 14.

He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines for each trade secret count, in addition to 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine for each economic espionage count.

Chhabria previously ruled Ding be released pending sentencing, finding he was not a danger to the public or a flight risk.

Following the hearing, Fondo told Courthouse News that “we’ve had significant concerns about the economic espionage charges, and I think the court shares those concerns.”

Representatives for the Department of Justice declined to comment.

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