JUDGE CONVICTS CHINESE OF STEALING TRADE SECRETS FOR BEIJING

A federal judge has convicted a Chinese national of economic espionage, stealing trade secrets and engaging in a conspiracy for the benefit of his country’s government.

US District Judge Edward Davila found Hao Zhang, 41, guilty of the three counts Friday after a four-day trial. The verdict “is an important step in holding accountable an individual who robbed his US employer of trade secrets and sought to replicate the company’s technology and replace its market share,” said John Demers, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security.

The decision comes five years after Hao five years after he was indicted on charges of conspiring to steal technology from two companies shortly after graduating from the University of Southern California. The conviction is part of efforts to crack down on China’s alleged theft of patented technology created in the US, a problem underlying the costly trade war between the two countries in recent years. China’s government has consistently denied it Is involved in any effort to steal US technology.

The trade secrets were heisted from Hao’s former employer, Skyworks Solutions in Woburn, Massachusetts, and Avago Technlogies, a San Jose, California, company later acquired by chipmaker Broadcom. The pilfered technology is used to help filter out unwanted signals to smartphones.