‘Stolen Trade Secrets’: Nvidia’s Screensharing Error leads to Company Suit

An automotive tech company has filed a lawsuit against Nvidia, the market leader in graphics chips, claiming that the former stole its trade secrets and may have avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in research costs.

An inadvertent error that occurred during a screen-sharing video discussion between the two firms is the cause of the legal action. According to Valeo, a senior Nvidia employee named Mohammad Moniruzzaman unintentionally leaked a file from Valeo that allegedly included stolen data. Based on the papers, it is claimed that in early 2021 Moniruzzaman “downloaded without authorization the entirety of Valeo’s advanced parking and driving assistance systems source code”. Additionally, a plethora of information, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs, were purportedly taken by him from Valeo.

Valeo, who has contributed significantly to the development of automotive technology for over thirty years, expressed grave concern about the purported theft, alleging that the actions of a former employee and Nvidia, the company he joined, had jeopardized years of hard work and creativity.

“The actions of one brazen former employee and the company he left Valeo to join — Nvidia — have undermined, and threaten to further undermine the many years of Valeo’s hard work and innovation,” according to the complaint.

The complaint also said that by exploiting Valeo’s stolen trade secrets, Nvidia may have avoided paying millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars in development expenses and reaped profits it did not deserve. Moniruzzaman was said to have acted with such audacity that the file path on his screen persisted in reading “ValeoDocs.”

Valeo is seeking many remedies via the case, including injunctive relief and compensation for what it claims is Nvidia’s misappropriation of its trade secrets. The lawsuit centers on the misconduct of Moniruzzaman and the purported advantage he provided to Nvidia in the development of advanced parking and driving assistance software.

Nvidia has not responded to the lawsuit as of yet. But in a letter to Valeo’s attorneys, Nvidia said that it “has no interest in Valeo’s code or its alleged trade secrets and has taken prompt concrete steps to protect your client’s asserted rights.” This was said by a legal practice that defended Nvidia.