Duracell IP thief sentenced

Putting an end to an interesting case of attempted corporate espionage, the United States District Attorney for Connecticut, Kevin J. O’Connor, announced on May 18 that a former employee of battery maker Duracell who attempted to sell company secrets to its rivals has been sentenced to probation.

On May 17, U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall sentenced Edward R. Grande, 49, to five years of probation for stealing trade secrets from Duracell, which has its headquarters in Bethel, Conn.

Hall, who presides over the Bridgeport District Court, also ordered Grande to pay a $7500 fine and perform 200 hours of community service.

According to the state’s case, between March and June 2006, Grande — who was employed as a cell development technologist at Duracell — copied and downloaded sensitive research about the company’s AA batteries to his computer.

He then e-mailed the documents to his home computer and carried hard copies of the materials home from Duracell’s offices.

Grande, who pled guilty to the charges in Feb. 2007, then forwarded the stolen intellectual property to two Duracell competitors in an attempt to damage the firm.

In a seemingly-impressive example of corporate responsibility, the companies who were sent the information by Grande returned it to the battery maker, which is owned by consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, revealing the employee’s scheme to Duracell executives.

The company was then aided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its inquiry into who exactly was responsible for the plot.

Duracell estimates that it generates over $1 billion dollars in revenue from the sale of its AA batteries each year.

The case is reminiscent of a scheme that unraveled roughly one year ago between soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

In July 2006, three individuals were arrested in Coke’s home town of Atlanta for attempting to sell trade secrets stolen by an employee of the company to Pepsi.

After lifting important information on future product recipes from Coke’s files, Joya Williams, an executive assistant at the company, and two accomplices attempted to sell the documents and a liquid product sample to Pepsi for cash.

The three individuals were subsequently charged with wire fraud and unlawfully stealing trade secrets by federal authorities after Pepsi alerted Coke officials and law enforcement that it had been offered the stolen materials.

Of course, no one will ever know if people at Pepsi and the two Duracell rivals looked at the materials before returning them to their rightful owners. But, since they behaved honestly in returning the stolen IP, we can give them the benefit of the doubt.