Theft of trade secrets is a specific criminal offense: 18 U.S. Code § 1832 - Theft of trade secrets (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832)
I don't see what good it does NOW to go after these individuals criminally, nor is there mention on who has been pushing this. Jawbone was liquidated in 2017. Who, actually, cares at this point? What do they stand to gain with these charges?
A federal prosecutor gets to beef up their numbers by getting some well paid tech workers to settle out of court for a few years salary spread over a few decades of payments.
(b) Any organization that commits any offense described in subsection (a) shall be fined not more than the greater of $5,000,000 or 3 times the value of the stolen trade secret to the organization, including expenses for research and design and other costs of reproducing the trade secret that the organization has thereby avoided.
But the penalty discussed in the article is up to 10 years in prison $250,000 in fines.
Is there a different statue at play here?
> shall, except as provided in subsection (b), be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
Stealing money from a bank and giving $100 to the next N people you see doesn't negate the fact that you stole the money from the bank. It just makes it harder for you to give it back.
But to your point: IMO theft is not a good analogy for this. It's not theft, its inflation.
In the bank scenario the bank would still have a copy of the $100. And so would everyone else. It's true, copying money devalues it - just like openly spreading a secret does - so everyone has less than $100 inflation adjusted dollars.
Theft is not a good term for this. I think the crime should be called "Spread of trade secrets"