A French automotive corporation who goes by Valeo claims that NVIDIA have saved countless millions of dollars by stealing their trade secrets.
NVIDIA at this point is no longer a consumer company, they couldn’t care less about the DIY PC sector and getting GeForce into the systems of gamers worldwide as seen with the heightened prices for ADA Lovelace. NVIDIA as a company have grown far beyond being a mere graphics company, majority of their research and development has been put into new lucrative markets such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, autonomous vehicles and intra-industry trade.
So it comes as no real surprise to me that NVIDIA lands themselves in hot water following an employee mishap whilst attempting a screenshare during a corporate meeting with Microsoft Teams.
First and foremost a bit of backstory, Valeo and NVIDIA are collaborating on an advanced parking and driving assistance technology provided by a manufacturer to its customers. Valeo was initially responsible for both the software and hardware aspects of the manufacturer’s parking assistance technology.
In 2021, the larger corporation secured the contract to develop its parking assistance software. In its lawsuit, Valeo claimed that a former employee, instrumental in the development of its parking and driving assistance systems, recognized that his knowledge and access to proprietary technologies would be “exceedingly valuable” to NVIDIA.
According to Valeo, an engineer who works for NVIDIA by the name of Mohammad Moniruzzaman, was actually a former employee of Valeo, and during a corporate meeting between both companies held back in 2022 where the illusive engineer accidentally revealed NVIDIA source code files via screenshare.
The only issue? Valeo employees recognized NVIDIA’s source code to have been their own developed software, taking necessary screenshots of the files themselves before Moniruzzaman was notified of his fatal error.
Moniruzzaman purportedly gained unauthorized access to Valeo’s systems by using his personal email to steal “tens of thousands of files” alongside 6GB of source code shortly after this development.
Subsequently, he departed from Valeo a few months later, taking the pilfered information with him when he assumed a senior position at NVIDIA, according to the complaint. Notably, he continued working on the identical project he had been engaged in at Valeo, which explains his presence during the video conference.
The lawsuit claims:
“On March 8, 2022, one of these videoconference meetings was scheduled. Mr. Moniruzzaman, now employed by Nvidia, attended the videoconference call… and shared his computer screen during the call.
When he minimized the PowerPoint presentation he had been sharing, however, he revealed one of Valeo’s verbatim source code files open on his computer. So brazen was Mr. Moniruzzaman’s theft, the file path on his screen still read “ValeoDocs.”
Valeo participants on the videoconference call immediately recognized the source code and took a screenshot before Mr. Moniruzzaman was alerted of his error. By then it was too late to cover his tracks.”
Additionally, Valeo’s software and documents were reportedly discovered on his computer when it was seized by investigators. Moniruzzaman is said to have admitted to stealing Valeo’s software during questioning by German police, according to the lawsuit.
Bloomberg highlights that Moniruzzaman was convicted of infringing Valeo’s business secrets in Germany in September, resulting in a fine of €14,400 ($15,724).
Despite Nvidia claiming no interest in utilizing the stolen code, Valeo alleges that its competitor has still benefitted from the theft, saving “millions of dollars in development costs.” Valeo contends that if the code underwent “extensive edits and feedback loops by other employees” and was merged into Nvidia’s database, it becomes “unrealistic” to expect the complete removal of their own source code.
