Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Core hint:

Ye Jun, a well-known lawyer and partner of Gezhi Law firm in the United States, and lawyer Zhao Zhan, a well-known IT and intellectual property lawyer, all believe that there is no evidence to prove that Zhang Xiaolang's secret theft was instructed by Xiaopeng Automobile, or that related secrets and technologies were used by Xiaopeng Automobile.

This case is actually a dispute between Apple and former Chinese employees, and has nothing to do with Xiaopeng.

On the evening of August 23, Xiaopeng released its financial results for the second quarter of 2022, which showed that its Q2 revenue was 7.436 billion yuan, an increase of 97.7% over the same period last year, while the total revenue in the first half of the year was close to 14.89 billion yuan, an increase of 121.9% over the same period last year. The net loss was 2.709 billion yuan. By the end of the second quarter, Xiaopeng had a cash reserve of 41.34 billion yuan.

On the same day, Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple employee, was suspected of stealing trade secrets from Apple's auto division in the case of job-hopping Xiaopeng. On the morning of August 23, Zhang Xiaolang pleaded guilty to the federal court in San Jose.

The morning news put Xiaopeng car on the hot search, and then Xiaopeng automobile official issued a statement on the matter, denying it for four times. Xiaopeng said that the case has been more than four years ago. Xiaopeng does not know the details of the case, nor has it been involved in the follow-up investigation of the case by US judicial authorities. There is no dispute with Apple and has nothing to do with the case.

But this recruitment stampede 4 years ago, or let Xiaopeng car back with the "technology thief" doubt.

The theft occurred before entering the job, and Xiaopeng was not investigated. Ye Jun, a partner of the American law firm Gezhi and a well-known lawyer, told Phoenix New Media Technology that from a legal level, there is no evidence to prove that Xiaopeng is responsible.

Zhang Xiaolang has been working at Apple since 2015 as a hardware engineer for Apple's self-driving car team. in April 2018, Zhang Xiaolang's child began to take paternity leave and told Apple when he returned from leave that his mother was ill. he has to go back to China to take care of his mother. He also revealed that he was going to work in Xiaopeng Automobile. In May, Zhang Xiaolang left Apple and joined Xiaopeng's Silicon Valley division.

A person close to Zhang Xiaolang told Phoenix New Media Technology that Zhang Xiaolang had already been investigated by Apple before leaving Apple.

When leaving office, the Apple security team checked the device history of two iPhone and laptop computers handed over by Zhang Xiaolang and found that downloads increased significantly, generating 581 rows of user activity records on April 28, up from 610 lines in the previous month.

In addition, Zhang Xiaolang admitted that he sent the data and information of the device to his wife's personal laptop through the "space delivery" function. When checking his wife's laptop, the authorities now have as much as 40 gigabytes of data, 60% of which have "serious problems." An Apple investigation found that Zhang Xiaolang downloaded documents and information from the company's database. Apple's surveillance cameras even caught Zhang Xiaolang entering the laboratory to dismantle the hardware.

On June 27, 2018, US federal agents met with Zhang Xiaolang, and officials said he had admitted stealing confidential data from Apple. On July 7, Zhang Xiaolang tried to return home and was arrested.

In other words, Zhang Xiaolang's secret theft took place in front of Xiaopeng car.

Zhao Zhan, a well-known IT and intellectual property lawyer, also believes that judging from the current information, neither Apple nor the prosecutor has filed a lawsuit or investigated Xiaopeng during the trial, which also shows that the case is actually a dispute between Apple and former Chinese employees, and has nothing to do with Xiaopeng. Apple protects its intellectual property rights. As long as Zhang Xiaolang has bad behavior identified by Apple, he will be investigated, regardless of where he works.

Xiaopeng technology route is self-developed route, and autopilot has been mass-produced, while Apple's autopilot technology has not yet landed.

Both lawyers believe that there is no evidence to prove that Zhang Xiaolang's secret theft was instructed by Xiaopeng car, or the relevant secrets and technology were used by Xiaopeng car.

According to section 18 / Code §1839 of the United States Act, the definition of "trade secret" is very broad, including various forms of financial, commercial, scientific research, technical, economic, and engineering information, including almost all forms of information preserved in any way, as long as the company implements reasonable confidentiality measures and the information will be of economic value to third parties.

Ye Jun, a lawyer, also warned that the habit of copy files before leaving his job may bring him risks. He said that the definition of trade secrets is very broad, especially the results of work and technology, most of which are also trade secrets, but many people who have no legal awareness may have the wrong impression that they have made it by themselves and can take it with them.

A number of incidents of secret theft: apart from Zhang Xiaolang, Xiaopeng was also involved in several other cases of secret theft by Chinese engineers.

In January 2019, Jizhong Chen, a former Chinese-American hardware engineer at Apple, was charged by US prosecutors on suspicion of stealing trade secrets from Apple's electric car division. Apple said it found that Chen Jizhong had sent a resume to a Chinese company that competed with Apple in the development of a self-driving self-driving car project, suspected to be Xiaopeng, which was denied by Xiaopeng.

In addition to Apple, Tesla has also sued Xiaopeng automotive engineers for stealing trade secrets.

On July 10, 2019, Cao Guangzhi, a senior engineer of Xiaopeng Automobile, made public the response document to the Court of the Northern District of California. Cao Guangzhi admitted to compressing the source code related to Tesla's autopilot, but he denied that it was an act before leaving office.

Tesla pointed out in the lawsuit that Cao Guangzhi is a member of the company's self-driving team and one of only 40 people who have access to Autopilot source code. On January 3, 2019, Cao Guangzhi suddenly announced his resignation and joined Xiaopeng Motor. Tesla said Cao Guangzhi began uploading copies of Autopilot-related source code using his iCloud account in 2018 and eventually moved more than 300000 Autopilot-related files and directories. Xiaopeng responded at the time that before and after Cao Guangzhi joined the job, Xiaopeng did not find any possible violations claimed by Tesla, and the company had launched an investigation.

An early internal employee of Xiaopeng revealed that in the early stage of Xiaopeng's start-up, there was indeed the problem of insufficient tune to the incoming employees.

Another early employee of Xiaopeng Automobile told Phoenix New Media Technology that he was also recruited at the last ten days of 2017 without changing the process, and that the recruitment of social students during the same period was out of tune but not very strict.

This statement was confirmed by a number of insiders of Xiaopeng Motor.

According to Phoenix New Media science and technology, only 39 Xiaopeng cars were delivered in 2018, when Xiaopeng announced the launch of round B financing of 2.2 billion yuan. The enterprises that have just started round B financing generally belong to the start-up stage, and those who enter the job will not be very strict, and even most companies, in order to save costs, will not specifically hire back-tuning companies.

A headhunter who has been engaged in the recruitment of Internet technicians in China for many years told Phoenix New Media Technology that almost all the companies he serves are listed or intended to be listed on the stock market. These large companies generally hire specialized companies that do not want to be listed. The content of the survey is becoming more and more stringent. In addition to the contacts provided by the candidate himself, he will also confirm the candidate's performance in the previous company through other ways.

However, he said that, in general, unless there are more serious violations or other motives, the vast majority of companies will not be too bad about the departure of employees.

The headhunter revealed that generally after the determination of offer, there is a qualified tone report, the candidate can enter the post. But the operation space of the back adjustment process is actually very big, almost all Internet enterprises have "fish in troubled waters" who avoid the back adjustment process, the paper can not contain fire, if they find that there are problems with employees, enterprises will generally actively deal with them.

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