Judge acquits ex-Google engineer of economic espionage in AI secrets case

A San Francisco jury previously found Linwei Ding guilty of seven counts of theft of trade secrets and seven counts of economic espionage following a two-week trial in January.SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A former Google software engineer found guilty of stealing proprietary information on Google’s artificial intelligence technology for a Chinese company had part of his conviction tossed Thursday over insufficient evidence.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 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.In June, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria concluded a rational juror could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Ding intended to take the trade secret information, ruling the government provided “overwhelming evidence” at trial that Ding planned to benefit himself and the company he was forming in China when he uploaded Google trade secrets between spring 2022 and spring 2023.However, in a separate order released Thursday addressing Ding’s economic espionage conviction, the Barack Obama appointee said there was insufficient evidence for a rational juror to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ding possessed the intent to benefit the Chinese government when he uploaded the trade secret documents.“In the months following his final theft of the trade secrets, Ding may have eventually developed the intent necessary to support the economic espionage charges. But the evidence was too thin to support a conclusion — at least under the reasonable doubt standard — that at the various times of the illegal uploads Ding already intended or knew that his conduct would benefit the Chinese government,” Chhabria said in the 18-page order.Ding began transferring files in the spring of 2022, copying information from internal Google documents to the notes app 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 government argued that while Ding was uploading the files to his personal cloud account in spring 2022, he had a plan to make his own technology company, Zhisuan Technology, successful by partnering with the Chinese government.The government also pointed to evidence that Ding touted his relationships with Chinese instrumentalities in November 2023, as well as Ding’s application to a Chinese government talent program in December of the same year.Despite this, Chhabria said the evidence is “too removed in time” to support the conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that Ding intended or knew during the spring 2022 to 2023 period that his actions would benefit the Chinese government.“For example, if Ding had stolen Google’s trade secrets on a Monday and then transmitted them to a Chinese government official that Friday, nobody would question a finding that he stole the trade secrets with the intent to benefit the government,” he said. “But at some point — particularly when the reasonable doubt standard applies — it becomes too speculative to rely solely on conduct that occurred months later to prove a defendant’s intent at the earlier point in time.”The judge additionally found the evidence presented at trial showed Ding’s efforts to steal Google’s trade secrets were “ad hoc, disorganized and feeble,” adding Ding “seemed to be making things up as he went along.”“No one has suggested that Ding is anything like this ‘expert on the government and the technology industry in China,’” he said. “The picture the government painted for the jury — of someone who ‘wanted more from his career than his own knowledge and experience could earn for him’ — is not of a person with the knowledge and sophistication to understand the Chinese technology industry in this nuanced way.”Chhabria further rejected the government’s alternate theory of economic espionage — that even if Ding did not have the intent to benefit the Chinese government when he uploaded the trade secret documents to his personal cloud account between the spring of 2022 and 2023, he did have the intent when he downloaded the trade secret documents to his personal laptop in December 2023 — writing that the government never presented the argument to the jury.“Nowhere did the government suggest to the jury that it should convict Ding of economic espionage based on his state of mind during any period other than the one in which he originally uploaded the trade secrets,” Chhabria said. “Thus, the fact that the evidence could have supported a conviction on this alternative download theory does not matter. The government can’t save a legally flawed conviction by identifying a new theory it failed to articulate at trial.”The judge noted the order mandates acquittal of the charges, rather than opening the possibility of a new trial, due to protections against double jeopardy.In a statement to Courthouse News, Grant Fondo of Goodwin Procter, an attorney for Ding, celebrated the ruling.“We are gratified that the court granted our motion and acquitted Mr. Ding as to each of the economic espionage charges,” he said.A Department of Justice representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Ding is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 1. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines for each trade secret count.Chhabria previously ruled that Ding be released pending sentencing, finding he was not a danger to the public or a flight risk.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads