On May 16, 2015, Tianjin\u00a0University Professor Hao Zhang was arrested upon entry into the U.S. from the People\u2019s Republic of\u00a0China (PRC) in connection with a recent superseding indictment in the Northern District of California.\u00a0The 32-count indictment, which had previously been sealed, charges a total of six individuals with\u00a0economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for their roles in a long-running effort to obtain U.S. trade\u00a0secrets for the benefit of universities and companies controlled by the PRC government. According to the\u00a0indictment, PRC nationals Wei Pang and Hao Zhang met at a U.S. university in Southern California\u00a0during their doctoral studies in electrical engineering. While there, Pang and Zhang conducted research\u00a0and development on thin-film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) technology under funding from U.S.\u00a0Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). After earning their doctorate in approximately\u00a02005, Pang accepted employment as an FBAR engineer with Avago Technologies (Avago) in Colorado\u00a0and Zhang accepted employment as an FBAR engineer with Skyworks Solutions Inc. (Skyworks) in\u00a0Massachusetts. The stolen trade secrets alleged in the indictment belong to Avago or Skyworks. Avago\u00a0is a designer, developer and global supplier of FBAR technology, which is a specific type of radio\u00a0frequency (RF) filter. Throughout Zhang\u2019s employment, Skyworks was also a designer and developer of\u00a0FBAR technology. FBAR technology is primarily used in mobile devices like cellular telephones, tablets\u00a0and GPS devices. FBAR technology filters incoming and outgoing wireless signals so that a user only\u00a0receives and transmits the specific communications intended by the user. Apart from consumer\u00a0applications, FBAR technology has numerous applications for a variety of military and defense\u00a0communications technologies. According to the indictment, in 2006 and 2007,\u00a0 Pang, Zhang and other coconspirators\u00a0prepared a business plan and began soliciting PRC universities and others, seeking\u00a0opportunities to start manufacturing FBAR technology in China. Through efforts outlined in the\u00a0superseding indictment, Pang, Zhang and others established relationships with officials from Tianjin\u00a0University. Tianjin University is a leading PRC Ministry of Education University located in the PRC and\u00a0one of the oldest universities in China. As set forth in the indictment, in 2008, officials from Tianjin\u00a0University flew to San Jose, CA, to meet with Pang, Zhang and other co-conspirators. Shortly thereafter,\u00a0Tianjin University agreed to support Pang, Zhang and others in establishing an FBAR fabrication facility\u00a0in the PRC. Pang and Zhang continued to work for Avago and Skyworks in close coordination with\u00a0Tianjin University. In mid-2009, both Pang and Zhang simultaneously resigned from the U.S. companies\u00a0and accepted positions as full professors at Tianjin University. Tianjin University later formed a joint\u00a0venture with Pang, Zhang and others under the company name ROFS Microsystem intending to mass\u00a0produce FBARs. The indictment alleged that Pang, Zhang and other co-conspirators stole recipes, source\u00a0code, specifications, presentations, design layouts and other documents marked as confidential and\u00a0proprietary from the victim companies and shared the information with one another and with individuals\u00a0working for Tianjin University. According to the indictment, the stolen trade secrets enabled Tianjin\u00a0University to construct and equip a state-of-the-art FBAR fabrication facility, to open ROFS\u00a0Microsystems, a joint venture located in PRC state-sponsored Tianjin Economic Development Area\u00a0(TEDA), and to obtain contracts for providing FBARs to commercial and military entities. The\u00a0remaining indicted defendants are all citizens of the PRC and include: Jinping Chen, a professor at\u00a0Tianjin University and a member of the board of directors for ROFS Microsystems; Huisui Zhang\u00a0(Huisui) studied with Pang and Zhang at a U.S. university in Southern California and received a Master\u2019s\u00a0Degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006; Chong Zhou, a Tianjin University graduate student and a\u00a0design engineer at ROFS Microsystem. Zhou studied under Pang and Zhang; Zhao Gang, the General\u00a0Manager of ROFS Microsystems. A trial is expected in 2018. This investigation was conducted by the\u00a0FBI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Theft of Trade Secrets by Chinese Professors for Technology to ChinaOn May 16, 2015, Tianjin\u00a0University Professor Hao Zhang was arrested upon entry into the U.S. from the People\u2019s Republic of\u00a0China […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3902,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremy-wu.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}