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Fourteen year sentence for engineer in China trade secrets case (abcnews.go.com)
5 points by 737min on June 6, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


The trade secrets cost Coca-cola $120 million to develop. Now the cost to develop a trade-secret is just a starting point to figuring out its value to the owner. As a general rule, developers of an intellectual property, particularly one that is commercialized, will value its integrity at considerably more than its development cost.

To a large extent, the trade secret's value could go to '0' if unfettered access is made to its competitors. So 14 years related to $120 mm is about $8.7 mm of 'development costs' per year incarcerated (assuming no probation). One wonders how many of the commercial spies escape to a non-extradition country after their deed is done (and for that matter, how many secrets get exposed by hacking).


The original indictment at https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1132356/downl... makes for an interesting read. I only dug around because I was wondering why she didn't high-tail it once they had stolen the formula




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