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Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

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Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#51

Post by FirmwareBurner »

kuroguro wrote: post #27
clnq wrote: post #12

This often happens ingenuously, not out of calculated ill intent. Coders will keep code snippets and thoughts in personal knowledge tools like Notion, and then reuse them in different companies. Or contractors will straight up copy and paste code from source files of projects they worked on for different companies, thinking "I wrote it, so I could write it again, but why bother?", or something along those lines. Peop…

> paste code from source files of projects they worked on for different companies I wonder what would happen if legal action started between two companies and it turned out a coder pasted code from personal projects that predates both.

>I wonder what would happen if legal action started between two companies and it turned out a coder pasted code from personal projects that predates both.

Highly unlikely. This was no FOSS web library he was working on, but some relatively cutting edge embedded automotive stuff, which few people do in their free time as a side project to put on github.

And anyway, according to most industry contracts and work laws, whatever code you check in your employer's systems during work hours and using work equipment, automatically now becomes your employer's code which you now can't share anymore.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#52

Post by AndroTux »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

> German police found its documentation and hardware pinned on Moniruzzaman's walls when his home was raided WTF actually prints out documentation? Let alone pins it to their walls? I mean....seriously does anybody actually do this?

Germans. We love printing, faxing and scanning stuff.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#54

Post by kennethrc »

ohyes wrote: post #45
clnq wrote: post #12

This often happens ingenuously, not out of calculated ill intent. Coders will keep code snippets and thoughts in personal knowledge tools like Notion, and then reuse them in different companies. Or contractors will straight up copy and paste code from source files of projects they worked on for different companies, thinking "I wrote it, so I could write it again, but why bother?", or something along those lines. Peop…

Or worse, they may just remember how they coded it last time and code it the same, or only remember subconsciously and code it the same without knowing. Someday there will be technology to erase all memory of work you did in service of your corporate overlords and you’ll be able to start with a true clean slate at every job.

> Someday there will be technology to erase all memory of work you did in service of your corporate overlords and you’ll be able to start with a true clean slate at every job.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11280740

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#55

Post by kmeisthax »

winocm wrote: post #31
juunpp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nvidia did hire him precisely for his previous experience at this rival company, on the very same project that the two companies were partnered on, which is the same project that Nvidia hired him for. Yes, this happens all the time. > There is no argument to be made that Nvidia wasn't aware he'd be coming with secrets. This is not a logical conclusion from the above. Hiring for the exp is fine. Hiring for the trade…

A thought that came to me recently in the shower: Isn't all knowledge effectively based on previous knowledge, and by extension, experience? i.e: A programmer knows how to do X, leaves a company to do Y, where Y is in the same field of work as X. Doesn't X still affect the programmer on a subconscious level and henceforth, their thoughts indirectly?

This is the "inevitable disclosure" argument - AKA the idea that the experience is the secret, and thus nobody should ever be allowed to switch employers ever again.

For various reasons (notably, the fact that slavery is illegal), we don't accept this in general. You have to show that secrets were copied in full. Employees cannot memorize millions of lines of source, they can only memorize vague architectural details that would be easily reverse engineered by competitors. If you want to own those vague details, get a patent, or shut up.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#57

Post by WalterBright »

jbverschoor wrote: post #32
gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

> German police found its documentation and hardware pinned on Moniruzzaman's walls when his home was raided WTF actually prints out documentation? Let alone pins it to their walls? I mean....seriously does anybody actually do this?

I'd love to have a 100 inch hidpi eink wall.

So would I. But I settle for an extra monitor in portrait mode, and will stick the pdf documentation in it when I'm following a spec.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#58

Post by muhehe »

kennethrc wrote: post #54
ohyes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or worse, they may just remember how they coded it last time and code it the same, or only remember subconsciously and code it the same without knowing. Someday there will be technology to erase all memory of work you did in service of your corporate overlords and you’ll be able to start with a true clean slate at every job.

> Someday there will be technology to erase all memory of work you did in service of your corporate overlords and you’ll be able to start with a true clean slate at every job. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11280740

Or

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0338337/

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#59

Post by sokoloff »

ip26 wrote: post #47
Symmetry wrote: post #21

One of the generally accepted reasons why its hard to get graphics companies to open source their drives has always been that everybody is violating everybody else's patents. And while everybody knows this making it too obvious is a legal disadvantage. But I hadn't expected it was also true of copyright.

Given independent invention is apparently not a defense against infringement, that makes a lot of sense. I can’t even imagine trying to screen the codebase for that.

"Infringement" is not specific enough there. Independent invention is not a defense against patent infringement, but is a defense against copyright infringement.
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