Former VP of HP Charged with IBM Trade-Secret Theft

July 1, 2008

David Kravets / Wired

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/07/former-vp-of-hp/

A former Hewlett Packard vice president is being charged with trade-secret theft for allegedly forwarding "confidential" IBM sales information to his HP superiors, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

Atul Malhotra, the HP vice president for imaging and printing services, was fired from his job in September 2006, a company spokeswoman told Threat Level on Tuesday.

According to a charging document (.pdf), Malhotra was the director of IBM global printer sales between 1997 and 2006. Two months before he moved to HP, he requested and received an internal memo titled "IBM Global Services, CC Calibration Metrics," which was marked "IBM Confidential" on each page, according to court records.

The authorities said a pricing coordinator for Armonk, New York-based IBM informed the defendant that, "given the sensitive nature of the material, please do not distribute."


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