Intel sued a former Oregon employee on Friday, alleging that he took trade secrets with him when he fled to Microsoft and used the information to gain an advantage in subsequent business negotiations with Intel.
The engineer, Varun Gupta, worked for Intel for a decade before leaving for Microsoft in January 2020, according to the lawsuit. He reportedly loaded Intel’s trade secrets onto two USB drives before leaving and then accessed them on his laptop provided by Microsoft.
Gupta could not be reached for comment.
Intel and Microsoft are longtime partners and increasingly rivals as Microsoft develops its own chip engineering capabilities. Microsoft is preparing to open a large new engineering center in Hillsboro, close to Intel’s research plants in Oregon, and has hired a former Intel vice president to help lead it.
In this case, however, the dispute indicates that Intel and Microsoft worked together to investigate the incident.
Intel’s complaint claims that Gupta denied knowing where one of the USB drives was, but later handed it over to Microsoft for analysis. He claimed to have discarded a second USB drive that allegedly contained Intel secrets, according to the dispute.
The lawsuit claims that Microsoft determined that Gupta connected the USB drives to his laptop provided by Microsoft.
“In his new role at Microsoft, Gupta used the confidential information and trade secrets he misappropriated from Intel, deploying that information in direct negotiations with Intel on custom product design and pricing for significant volumes of Xeon processors,” claimed the Intel on Friday’s file.
Intel’s complaint suggests that its marketing and engineering team was concerned that Gupta might have picked up trade secrets while conducting business negotiations with him after renting Microsoft. An internal investigation concluded that he had transferred 3,900 documents from Intel to a USB drive on his last day at Intel, according to the complaint.
Intel seeks damages not specified in the lawsuit, attorney fees and an injunction preventing Gupta from using or disclosing the material on the USB drive. She filed the lawsuit on Friday at the United States District Court in Portland.
“Intel has invested billions of dollars in developing the intellectual property critical to its success in some of the most competitive industries in the world,” Intel said in a written statement on Monday. “We have a lot of faith and trust in our current and past employees, but we have an obligation to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary information and we will not hesitate to act to prevent their misappropriation.”
– Mike Rogoway | [email protected] | Twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699