Cisco Systems (CSCO)

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Cisco accuses three former employees of stealing trade secrets and taking them to Poly
By: Business Journals | November 19, 2019

Cisco Systems has filed a lawsuit against three former employees, alleging that the trio stole thousands of pages of trade secrets on their way to join Poly, a Santa Cruz-based competitor in the audio and video conferencing space.

The San Jose networking hardware giant filed the lawsuit Monday against Poly Distinguished Engineer Wilson Chung, Poly Director James He and Poly Vice President of New Product Introduction Jedd Williams.

Williams declined to comment, and attorneys for He and Chung couldn’t be reached for comment.

Poly spokeswoman Edie Kissko said the company would not be commenting on the lawsuit.

"As reflected in the allegations in the complaint, we took the unusual step of filing a legal case against former employees for egregious intellectual property violations," Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum said in an email. "Our goal is to protect our significant (research and development) investments and valuable intellectual property."

Cisco claims that Chung and He, both former high-level engineers in the company’s Unified Communications Technology Group, downloaded thousands of Cisco’s confidential documents related to the design, manufacture, pricing and market opportunities for Cisco products shortly before leaving for jobs at Poly earlier this year.

Both are accused of destroying evidence after Cisco discovered the alleged misappropriation.

Williams, a former Cisco managing director of global collaboration sales who left the company last month after 21 years, allegedly misappropriated confidential material related to Cisco’s sales forecasts and business development opportunities, including spending commitments and potential upsides, immediately before leaving Cisco.

Williams is also accused of proposing to Poly a go-to-market strategy that he called “Project X,” which he had developed at Cisco.

Poly’s stock was trading almost 2 percent lower on Tuesday, closing at $25.76. The company’s shares plunged 25 percent earlier this month after reporting disappointing earnings results. The company has a market cap of just over $1 billion, compared to Cisco at nearly $193 billion.

Cisco’s stock was trading almost 1 percent higher Tuesday, closing at $45.47. The tech giant’s share price has been on a declining trend since July, when shares hit $57.95.

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