Industrial Espionage

Imagine a John le Carré novel doing its normal spy thing, except instead of infiltrating Cold War USSR to get plans for a new nuclear submarine, the agent infiltrates Procter & Gamble to learn the secrets of a new ketchup recipe, or a proprietary technique for making toilet paper softer.

The goal of industrial espionage is to steal trade secrets from a competitor. It might involve hacking into the rival's computer system or bribing a well-placed employee. Or, if you're feeling creative, an elaborate Mission Impossible-style heist mission.

Seem farcical? It isn't, sadly. Huge patent secrets were stolen from American semi-conductor companies by Chinese companies who cloned them and basically said, "Sue us." (In our Beijing courts.) So we did. And we lost.

Qualcomm and Apple had a big dust-up. Microsoft used to routinely take the software secrets of small companies in Silicon Valley and proffer the same "sue us" thing. Small companies had about a thousand fewer lawyers than Microsoft. But then Bill cured malaria, pretty much. So all's good.