By The Epoch Times | Created at 2025-02-28 17:09:20 | Updated at 2025-03-04 08:29:54
4 days ago
Liming Li faces up to 10 years in federal prison for using a California company’s proprietary information while working for a China-based manufacturer.
A Southern California man pleaded guilty on Feb. 27 to illegally downloading trade secrets from his employers and using them to build his own business with a China-based company, federal prosecutors announced.
Liming Li, 66, of Rancho Cucamonga, located about 42 miles east of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of trade secrets.
“The defendant here stole intellectual property in order to benefit companies in China,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally of Los Angeles. “Stealing proprietary information undermines our economic security and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will aggressively prosecute individuals that engage in this conduct.”
Court documents show Li worked for an unnamed Southern California-based business from 1996 to 2013. The company specialized in precision measuring instruments and metrological technology and equipment.
The business also designed and sold a range of products such as micrometers, calipers, coordinate measuring machines, and optical measurement systems.
Prosecutors say Li worked as a senior software engineer, then as a program manager. From 2013 to 2018, he worked as chief technologist at a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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During his time with the company and its subsidiary, Li helped develop the source code for one of the company’s software programs, which was considered proprietary information.
Li signed an employee handbook and confidentiality agreement with the company in July 2013, which required him to turn over all writings, records, files, technology, trade secrets, or data containing any of the company’s proprietary information, according to prosecutors.
The agreement also prohibited Li from copying the company’s proprietary information without written permission.
In his plea agreement, Li admitted that he sometimes downloaded the company’s proprietary information onto his own devices without permission and failed to return it to the company after he was terminated in January 2018.
In February 2018, Li operated a consulting company named JSL Innovations. In March 2020, he signed an employment agreement with Suzhou Universal Group Technology Co. Ltd., a China-based chain-and-bearing manufacturer.
Li worked for the China-based company until his arrest in May 2023.
Prosecutors claim that while Li worked for Suzhou Universal, he knowingly possessed his former company’s trade secrets, which he accessed more than once without the company’s authorization.
Li allegedly admitted to prosecutors that he used the proprietary information for his own economic benefit, and he knew it would injure the U.S. company’s interests, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“The FBI is well-aware that China is actively seeking and stealing American intellectual property at a rapid pace and those who willingly hand it over, as Mr. Li has done and now acknowledged, will face serious consequences,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
Li is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8 by U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
