If you’re on a video call at work, close any files you don’t want others to see. This seemingly simple rule was not thought of by an Nvidia employee, and it had a serious consequence: it turned out that the chip manufacturer could have stolen the data.

France-based German global auto supplier Valeo (Valeo Schalter und Sensoren GmbH) has filed a lawsuit against Nvidia, known for its graphics processors, alleging that the California-based company stole trade secrets from it, saving it millions of dollars. The case is based on a mistake made by an employee who previously worked at Valeo and moved to Nvidia from there.

According to the lawsuit filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in California, this former employee, who was otherwise involved in developing parking and driving assistance systems (which the two companies worked on together), had access to Valeo’s proprietary technologies. (He allegedly stole tens of thousands of related files and stole 6GB of source code) and thought that could make him very valuable to Nvidia, she says. Engadget. It turned out that way, because the engineer in question, Muhammad Muniruzzaman, was hired by Nvidia in a senior position in 2021.

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All this may never have been revealed if Muniruzzaman had not made a fatal mistake. As an Nvidia employee, he participated in a video conference with Valeo employees in 2022, and while sharing his screen during a Microsoft Teams call, he accidentally showed source code files. According to the lawsuit, Muniruzzaman’s theft was so brazen that the file path on his screen still read “ValeoDocs.” Anyway, Valeos took a screenshot and then only reported the engineer’s “error”.

Nvidia and Valeo worked together on the parking assistance system

In September 2023, German authorities also convicted him of illegal data possession. When questioned by German police, Muniruzzaman admitted to stealing Valeo’s software and using it while working at Nvidia. In fact, at no point during the German criminal investigation did he deny the crime. In the end, he was ordered to pay 14,400 euros. However, this is by no means the end of the issue.

Valeo has filed a lawsuit against Nvidia, claiming that the tech giant benefited financially from stolen trade secrets. “Nvidia saved millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of dollars in development costs and made profits that it was not entitled to. “By using stolen trade secrets to develop a competing product, Nvidia diminished the value of Valeo’s trade secrets,” the complaint states. They are seeking damages They want a court order preventing Nvidia and its subsidiaries from using Valeo’s code.

But according to lawyers representing Nvidia, Mr. Muniruzzaman’s actions were “completely unknown” to the company until May 2022, when he told his employer he was under investigation. He also allegedly told Nvidia that the code was “only stored locally on his device.” “laptop,” so others at the company couldn’t access it. “Nvidia has no interest in Valeo’s code or alleged trade secrets,” the lawyers wrote.

Valeo appears to have been undeterred after it claimed its rival continued to profit from leaked trade secrets. If the code is merged with Nvidia’s database after “extensive modifications and feedback from other employees,” it is “unrealistic” to believe it can be completely removed, according to Valeo. The date of the jury trial is not yet known.

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