(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a

columnist for Reuters.)

By Jenna Greene

September 2 (Reuters) - First came the theft, then the

epic PowerPoint fail: A software engineer stole confidential

source codes, jumped ship to chipmaking giant Nvidia ( NVDA ), and then

accidentally shared the documents on a video call with his

former colleagues.

The theft and blunder led the man's prior employer, global

automotive tech supplier Valeo, to file a trade-secrets lawsuit

against Nvidia ( NVDA ). Now a federal judge in San Jose, California,

has greenlit the case for trial in November, ruling that a jury

must decide whether the chipmaker benefitted from the pilfered

information.

Trade secrets have been called the lifeblood of Silicon

Valley, and the case raises a thorny intellectual property

question: Can Nvidia, which claims it didn't want or use any of

the stolen information, still be held liable for the rogue

employee's misappropriation?

In a complaint filed in 2023, Valeo sued Santa Clara,

California-based Nvidia ( NVDA ), the world's most valuable company,

alleging the engineer downloaded tens of thousands of Valeo's

confidential source code files related to advanced parking and

driver assistance systems for automobiles before quitting and

decamping to Nvidia ( NVDA ) in 2021.

The chipmaker had recently beat out Valeo for a contract to

supply Mercedes-Benz with software for a new parking assistance

system. Such systems can aid drivers in finding spots and

maneuvering their vehicles into them.

As a result, Nvidia ( NVDA ) "saved millions, perhaps hundreds of

millions, of dollars in development costs, and generated profits

that it did not properly earn" by making use of Valeo's

proprietary information, Valeo lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis

assert.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) in court papers counters that there's no evidence it

intended for engineer Mohammad Moniruzzaman to take any

information from Valeo - it fired him after the deception came

to light - nor has it used any of Valeo's trade secrets in its

products, defense counsel from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

wrote.

Moniruzzaman, who worked for a Nvidia ( NVDA ) subsidiary in Germany

and is not a defendant in the case, was convicted there in 2023

of unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure of Valeo's trade

secrets. He could not be reached for comment.

Valeo's first move was to sue Nvidia ( NVDA ) in Germany over the

breach. The attempt failed when the German court found no proof

that Nvidia ( NVDA ) possessed any of Valeo's trade secrets and ordered

Valeo to pay Nvidia's ( NVDA ) costs.

"We have no reason to believe the outcome in California will

be any different," a Nvidia ( NVDA ) spokesperson told me.

Valeo did not respond to requests for comment.

The California suit amounts to a second bite of the apple

for Valeo.

In court papers, the Paris-headquartered company, which

employs 100,000 people worldwide, stresses its 100-year history

as an automotive technology pioneer. For example, it introduced

the reverse beeper parking assistance system in 1991 (it pings

faster and louder when you're about to hit something) as well as

the first automated parking assistance system in 2011.

But as cars have become increasingly computerized, Valeo has

found itself competing head-on with Nvidia ( NVDA ), which launched its

"Drive" platform in 2015. In a news release at the time, Nvidia ( NVDA )

said it would put "the visual computing capabilities of

supercomputers at the service of each driver."

Valeo in court papers said it previously supplied Mercedes

with parking-related technology but was demoted to providing

sensor hardware only after Nvidia ( NVDA ) won the software contract in

2020. A Mercedes spokesperson did not respond to a request for

comment.

Moniruzzaman, who'd worked for Valeo for six years on

parking and driving assistance programs, jumped to Nvidia ( NVDA ) in

2021, where he landed a more senior position working on the

Mercedes project, Valeo said. However, he still needed to

coordinate with former colleagues on the hardware. When he

inadvertently revealed stolen source code after minimizing his

Power Point presentation, a Valeo employee recognized it

immediately and took a screen shot as proof.

The key question for the court: Did Nvidia use any of the

misappropriated information?

In a 15-page ruling rejecting the bulk of Nvidia's ( NVDA ) motion

for summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Noel Wise on August 28

said Valeo offered "a number of circumstantial facts that give

rise to the interference" that Nvidia ( NVDA ) may have relied on the

tainted work.

For example, she said, the engineer had confidential Valeo

documentation and hardware pinned to the walls of his workspace

and Valeo source code on his laptop.

"These facts support the reasonable inference that

Moniruzzaman incorporated Valeo trade secrets into the code he

created" for Nvidia ( NVDA ), she wrote. "Whether he actually did is a

question for the jury."

As for Nvidia's ( NVDA ) claims that it "rolled back" all of

Moniruzzaman's additions to its code base, removing any

compromised contributions, the judge found that too was a

question for jurors to decide.

Nor was she swayed by Nvidia's ( NVDA ) argument that the case should

be dismissed because the company didn't sanction Moniruzzaman's

conduct, and he was not acting within the scope of his

employment.

Such claims "skirt the issue," Wise wrote. Even though both

sides agree Nvidia ( NVDA ) took immediate action against Moniruzzaman

when his misdeeds were exposed, that's not enough to get the

company off the hook now. Instead, it will be up to jurors this

fall to decide if Nvidia ( NVDA ) owes Valeo royalty damages for the

engineer's theft.