Hsieh

Following a court trial, defendant was convicted of one count of misappropriating a trade secret in violation of Penal Code section 499c. [1] The court reduced the conviction to a misdemeanor. (§ 17.) The court found defendant not guilty of two other charges: felony deletion of computer data (§ 502, subd. (c)(4)) and grand theft of a microwave modular switch. (§§ 484/487.) Defendant appeals the judgment of conviction under section 499c on the ground of insufficiency of the evidence. We will reverse.

Defendant Chung-Ta Hsieh is an engineer. In 1996, he was hired by Anritsu Microwave Measurement Division (formerly Wiltron), a Morgan Hill company that produces test equipment for sale to the communications industry ("Anritsu"). At the time defendant began working for Anritsu, the company was developing a product it called the 69000b Synthesizer. The 69000b Synthesizer was designed to convert a fixed frequency signal to a flexible, broad-band source, thereby allowing customers to test many different devices with a single instrument. The 69000b Synthesizer incorporated an IQ modulator, on which defendant worked. [2]

Eventually, defendant became dissatisfied with his…