California Man Sentenced for Possession of Stolen Trade Secrets

West, 21, of Morgan Hill, Calif., pled guilty in federal court in San Jose on March 9 to one count of Possession of Stolen Trade Secrets in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(3).

In February 2008, several months after resigning from his position as a senior product manager at Phillips Lumileds to work for a competitor, West was found in possession of the architecture and product specifications for Phillips Lumileds’ next generation of Luxeon Rebel surface mountable power LED’s. According to the plea agreement, West had downloaded and copied the information before resigning from Phillips. He intended to use the information for the benefit of himself and knew that his possession and use of the information would harm Phillips.

Prior to pleading guilty, West met with representatives from Phillips Lumileds and the government and agreed to assist in providing an accounting of all the copies of the confidential and proprietary information that he had made

Phillips Lumileds Lighting Company is a San Jose, company that designs and manufactures light emitting diodes, which may be used for computer displays, liquid crystal display televisions and general lighting. One of the company’s primary products was the Luxeon Rebel line of LED’s.

The maximum statutory penalty for each count of possession of stolen trade secrets in violation 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(3) is 10 years imprisonment, 3 years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000

Hanley Chew is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Lauri Gomez. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The investigation was overseen by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Phillips Lumileds cooperated with the investigation.

By FBI.gov