A federal judge overturned part of Linwei Ding's conviction for stealing AI trade secrets from Google, initially intended to benefit two Chinese companies.
Ex-Google engineer Ding's espionage charges overturned; trade secret theft convictions for AI infrastructure and chips stand. Signals foundation model IP as prosecuted theft target; companies must strengthen access controls and data compartmentalization.
The decision was made by US District Judge Vince Chhabria
Aug 21, 2026
04:34 pm
What's the storyA US federal judge has overturned part of the conviction of Linwei Ding, a former Google engineer accused of stealing artificial intelligence (AI) trade secrets from the tech giant.
The decision was made by US District Judge Vince Chhabria, who ruled that prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence that Ding intended to benefit the Chinese government.
Ex-Google Engineer’s Conviction for Stealing AI Secrets Partially Overturned
Ex-Google engineer's conviction for stealing AI secrets partially overturned
Former Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing AI Trade Secrets Gets Major Legal Break as Judge Throws Out
Google: Ex-Google engineer's conviction for stealing AI secrets partially overturned - The Economic Times
Ex-Google engineer’s espionage convictions overturned, theft convictions stand
A US federal court has dropped economic espionage charges against Google engineer Linwei Ding after prosecutors failed to…
Linwei Ding, a Chinese national, is found guilty in January of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of…
On Thursday, judge overturns Linwei Ding’s economic espionage convictions while upholding his trade-secret theft convictions.
U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled there was insufficient evidence Ding intended or knew his…
Judge Vince Chhabria overturned seven economic espionage convictions against Linwei Ding, finding no proof he acted to benefit…
The case marks the first conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.
