Former Intel employee found guilty in sharing $1 Billion worth of trade secrets with AMD

Biswamhoan Pani, a former Intel Corp. Engineer, has been accused of stealing trade secrets worth more than $1 billion dollars from Intel while working for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Pani allegedly downloaded the files over a four-day period in June. Prosecutors acknowledged that AMD was unaware of Pani's actions but said that Pani had planned to use this information to advance his career at AMD or elsewhere by drawing on it when the opportunity arose, whether with his employer's knowledge or not. AMD had no knowledge of Pani's actions and did not benefit. However, they say the information Pani downloaded was worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs, and included details about methods for designing microprocessors.

Pani had resigned from Intel but still had access to the company's computers. He had told supervisors that he was investigating a hedge fund job but in reality had started working for chip rival AMD and for a time was on both companies' payrolls.