On September 10, the second day of the court trial involving Chinese tech giant Huawei commenced. The prosecution summoned Linda Schnider, former senior engineering manager of Huawei’s US subsidiary Futurewei, Teresa and Timothy Harmon, who are in charge of an exhibition company, and a former corporate intelligence director of Fujitsu, to inquire about Huawei’s alleged infringement of intellectual property rights and trade secrets.
Linda Schnider, with a senior background in leading development teams at renowned tech companies like Apple and Sun Microsystems, worked at Huawei’s Futurewei subsidiary in the US for three years starting from 2009. She served as the director of cloud middleware software architecture and development, overseeing a team of 8 to 10 engineers in building cloud services and databases.
During the court proceedings, Schnider mentioned that an engineer from China expressed excitement upon discovering a patent similar to the API of their developed product. This engineer suggested utilizing the information for product development to enhance their own product, even feeling “proud” about it. Schnider found this reaction to be “comical”.
As a professionally trained engineer in the US, Schnider explained that it’s uncommon to proactively review others’ patents as they represent protected properties of individuals; however, the management chain at Huawei encouraged such behavior and didn’t find it controversial, which left her puzzled.
When questioned about Futurewei’s data storage and backup mechanisms, Schnider revealed that despite Huawei having an IP patent group internally to safeguard their technology and requiring employees and partners to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), the computer data and research information of Futurewei would be regularly backed up and transmitted back to Huawei’s headquarters in China.
This raised concerns for Schnider due to US technology export controls. The intellectual property shared between US collaborating companies and Futurewei, if shared with Huawei in China, could involve export control issues. She had expressed her worries to her direct supervisor Andy Chen, who was sent by Huawei from China, and another manager, Jim Hughes.
However, her warnings were disregarded by the management, with her concerns being seen as “meaningless” by other colleagues. Realizing that “no one would change their behavior,” Schnider submitted her resignation the following week.
Subsequently, witnesses related to the “exhibition booth photographing incident” at the 2004 Chicago Trade Expo were summoned by the prosecution. The defense lawyer argued during the opening statement that the incident was solely due to the “personal foolishness” of the employees involved, and Huawei had promptly terminated them after the incident.
Teresa Harmon, the head of the exhibition company, mentioned that their company organizes around 25 large-scale exhibitions annually and was handling Fujitsu’s booth in Chicago at the time. Due to strict no photography rules at the exhibition, they had hired a retired police officer as on-site security to protect the exhibits.
After the exhibition closed, Teresa witnessed an Asian man in a suit and tie with a camera moving around the Fujitsu booth when she was preparing for the next day. Upon questioning the man if he was a Fujitsu employee, he refused to answer and attempted to leave. Teresa promptly called security to detain him, requesting to see his identification and check the contents of the camera. Her husband, Timothy Harmon, later testified, adding that the detained man appeared nervous.
The former corporate intelligence director of Fujitsu stated that he received an urgent call from Teresa while dining in downtown Chicago that night and rushed to the scene. He confirmed that the detainee’s passport showed Chinese nationality and had been issued just a few weeks prior. Items found on the person included a camera and a notebook, with the camera’s memory card containing several photos of dismantled internal circuits of devices, some of which belonged to Fujitsu products. He then handed over the memory card to Fujitsu’s chief legal officer located in Texas for handling.
Due to the expected lengthy trial duration of four months in this case, the attendance of the jury also posed challenges. Following a juror writing a note to the judge on the first day, requesting to withdraw due to their employer only providing 5 days of paid leave, another juror on the second day of the court trial expressed that their employer agreed to only pay for two weeks, unable to support the trial period lasting several months. The judge assured ongoing communication and coordination with the employer to ensure the jury could fulfill their duties smoothly.