Federal Judge Partially Overturns Conviction of Former Google Engineer

A federal judge in San Francisco has overturned seven counts of economic espionage in the conviction of Linwei Ding, a former Google software engineer. Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove Ding intended or knew his conduct would benefit the government of China. However, the judge maintained the guilty verdict regarding the theft of trade secrets. Ding, a Chinese national also known as Leon Ding, was originally found guilty in January following an 11 day trial. He was convicted of stealing thousands of pages of confidential information concerning the hardware infrastructure and software platform used by Google to train large AI models. Prosecutors alleged that Ding began the thefts in 2022 while being courted by an early stage Chinese technology company. The stolen chip blueprints were intended to give Google an advantage over rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft and reduce its reliance on Nvidia. Ding was originally indicted in March 2024, with charges expanded in February 2025. Each economic espionage charge carries a maximum 15 year prison term and a 5 million dollar fine, while trade secrets charges carry a maximum 10 year term and a 250,000 dollar fine. Ding is scheduled for sentencing on September 1. An attorney for Ding expressed gratification with the ruling, while the Justice Department and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.