Did Nvidia steal trade secrets?
In the lawsuit filed by the French company Valeo, with which Nvidia collaborated for a while, it is claimed that the chip giant unethically acquired some technologies related to the automatic parking and driving system.
In 2021, Nvidia and Valeo came together for an important tender and began to develop automatic parking and driving system technologies. While Nvidia won this tender, Valeo provided support on sensor hardware and software.
However, a Valeo employee named Mohammad Moniruzzaman was transferred to Nvidia for an important position. In a Microsoft Teams conversation between Nvidia and Valeo employees in 2022, Mohammad Moniruzzaman accidentally showed folders containing confidential information belonging to his former company while sharing the screen. Valeo employees immediately took screenshots and brought the issue to management.
Mohammad Moniruzzaman’s house was raided by the German police and documents were seized. It was revealed that Moniruzzaman stole 6GB of data belonging to Valeo without permission and took it to Nvidia. The employee was fined 14,400 euros.
Although Nvidia stated at that time that it was not interested in Valeo’s technologies and would take steps to protect its customer’s interests, the company clearly defined this as the theft of trade secrets. That’s why he filed a lawsuit some time ago. Valeo claims that thanks to its own technologies, Nvidia saves R&D and millions of dollars without labor.