James Delahunty
16 Jan 2013 18:43
Over 150,000 documents allegedly involved.
AMD has filed a lawsuit against four former managers, alleging that they operated a spying ring within the company, before eventually jumping ship and joining major rivals Nvidia. The graphics chipmaker filed the lawsuit in a Massachusetts district court this week.
"This is an extraordinary case of trade secret transfer/misappropriation and strategic employee solicitation," the filing reads.
"Thousands of AMD document or electronic files have been taken from its facilities by employees leaving to work for a primary competitor in the graphics business Nvidia Corporation."
Specifically, AMD claims that former manager Robert Feldstein downloaded license agreements, strategic plans and his corporate Outlook e-mail files to external devices. Along with another colleague, Richard Hagen, Feldstein allegedly recruited two more AMD employees who were willing to participate.
Manoo Desal allegedly brought over a 200-file database of AMD's technological work and development from its Perforce file management system, and Nicolas Kociuk copied over 150,000 files within two weeks before he resigned at AMD.