Judge Overturns Part of Ex-Google Engineer's Conviction

A federal judge has overturned part of the conviction of Linwei Ding, a former Google engineer accused of stealing AI trade secrets. The court found insufficient evidence that Ding intended to benefit the Chinese government. However, the guilty verdict on theft of trade secrets remains.

A federal judge in San Francisco has overturned part of the conviction of Linwei Ding, a former Google software engineer. Ding had been found guilty earlier this year of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets from the tech giant to aid two Chinese companies.

U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that there was not enough evidence to prove Ding knew or intended his actions to benefit the Chinese government, which was a requisite for conviction on seven counts of economic espionage.

Though the counts of espionage have been dismissed, the court upheld the guilty verdict regarding the theft of trade secrets from Google, a significant ruling in the ongoing legal proceedings against Ding.