People v. Gopal
| Decision Date | 23 August 1985 |
| Citation | 217 Cal.Rptr. 487,171 Cal.App.3d 524 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Peter K. GOPAL, Defendant and Appellant. A012679. |
John W. Clark, Michael J. Korda, Clark & Korda, Professional Corp., San Jose, for defendant and appellant.
John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Thomas A. Brady, Robert R. Granucci, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.
*
Appellant Peter K. Gopal, together with Lee Yamada, Jim Catanich, and Andrew Moore, 1 was indicted in 1978 2 on a total of 23 counts relating to events surrounding the alleged theft of trade secrets from Silicon Valley firms manufacturing semiconductors and computer chip devices. In essence, the investigation involved a "sting" operation in which appellant offered to sell and then delivered stolen property to corporate security officers resulting in his arrest, the issuance of a search warrant, and the seizure of additional stolen property.
After lengthy pretrial proceedings and a 31-day court trial, 3 appellant was found guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime (Pen.Code, §§ 182/496), 4 offering a bribe to acquire a trade secret ( § 499c, subd. (c)), and four counts of possession of stolen property ( § 496). 5 He was sentenced to two years and eight months in state prison.
To understand the nature of the stolen property, 6 an elementary description of the manufacturing process of semiconductors may be helpful. At an earlier stage of these proceedings, Division One of this Court concisely summarized this process as follows:
On September 11, 1978, Larry Worth, the purchasing manager for National Semiconductor Corporation's (NSC's) computer operations group, participated in a sales meeting with a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer. The meeting was also attended by Andrew Moore. During the meeting, Moore asked Worth to step aside, and inquired whether Worth might be interested in buying certain fast memory chips being produced by Intel Corporation (Intel), together with the process for manufacturing them.
At the time, NSC was working on a memory board to upgrade certain IBM systems, and they were interested in Intel's 2147 device, a very fast state-of-the-art chip. Worth told Moore that for NSC to be interested, "they would have to be Intel...." Moore confirmed that they were. He indicated that the person who had them (who later turned out to be appellant) was then in Europe selling them to foreign semi-conductor corporations, but he was expected back in a week. When asked the price, Moore said it would be $200,000 per processor, or $1 million to $2 million on a group deal. Worth told Moore he would "take it to Charlie"--Charles Sporke, president of NSC.
Worth advised Sporke of the offer and then telephoned Moore to tell him that NSC was interested "as long as they were Intel parts...." Moore again reassured Worth and said he would let Worth know "when the fellow that had them was back in town...."
Meanwhile, Sporke contacted officials at Intel. At his request, Worth met with security agents from both NSC and Intel and the two companies decided to pursue a joint investigation. Intel representatives contacted the Santa Clara Police Department for assistance and officers from the Detective Division were assigned to the case.
On September 19, 1978, Moore telephoned Worth to tell him his principal was back from Europe. Moore arranged for Worth to meet with them later that day at 1030-H East Duane Avenue in Sunnyvale, the offices of appellant's business, Semiconductor Systems, Inc. (SSI). Before going, Worth was equipped by police officers with a hidden transmitter so his conversations could be monitored and recorded by the Santa Clara police.
That afternoon, Worth met with Moore and appellant Gopal at the East Duane Avenue offices. They discussed various memory chips from Intel, including the 2114 and 2147 devices. During their conversation, Gopal characterized the chips as being proprietary information of Intel. 8 Using a blackboard, Gopal noted the various model numbers, their availability, the prices per mask and per process, and offered to sell them to Worth. He indicated a copy of Intel's 2147 could not be ready until December, so the discussion focused on the 2114. Prices of $150,000 for the data base tape from which to produce the 2114 and $250,000 for the process were mentioned. Similar prices were mentioned for the Intel 8080 and other Intel products they discussed. Gopal suggested that payments be made by check to a Hong Kong company, and that any invoices refering to the transaction be for "design and consulting." After further discussion of the financing, Gopal again reassured Worth that by buying his materials, "you'll get the same parts as Intel...."
Changing the subject, Gopal then asked Worth if Worth was interested in selling any of NSC's circuits--specifically, a Calma data base tape for National's 8251. 9 According to Worth, Gopal Gopal offered to pay Worth in cash. "All I want is the tape." When Worth expressed concern about the legal ramifications, Gopal said he would not use the tape to produce a chip in this country, nor would it be sold in the competitive world market. "Most of my clients are using it for in-house process."
The next meeting was on September 25, at a Chinese restaurant in San Jose. Gopal, Moore and Worth were joined by Thomas Dunlap, an Intel employee acting as if he were employed by NSC. For purposes of the investigation, NSC had provided him with an office, phone, and identification badge. In fact, Dunlap was an electrical engineer and lawyer responsible for administering technology exchange at Intel and he was awre of all Intel technology officially leaving that company. His goal was to determine technically whether appellant actually had access to Intel's proprietary products and information.
During this restaurant meeting (which was also monitored and recorded), appellant repeated his earlier offer to Worth to sell the 2114 design and process information for a total of $250,000 and said it would be available the next day. Gopal arranged to meet Dunlap the next day at NSC, and said he would bring a data base tape, some SSI overlays, and an actual Intel overlay and reticle, so Dunlap could compare the SSI materials with the Intel originals. Dunlap was to be ready to pay $100,000.
Later on that same afternoon of September 25, Moore came to Worth's office at NSC. Moore volunteered that Worth would receive seven percent of all sales between appellant and NSC. Thus, Worth would receive $7,000 of the $100,000 sale price that had been set for the sale of the Intel 2114 product information.
The September 26 meeting between Gopal, Moore, and Dunlap at NSC "went off but it did not go off exactly as planned." Dunlap called Moore to tell him that "the money could not be laundered in time." Meanwhile, Gopal had decided not to bring a data base tape as he feared that NSC might copy it during the course of the testing procedures. He did bring a set of SS0012A overlays (SSI's version of the 2114) and an Intel reticle. During their discussions, appellant indicated that it was the 2114E, the latest version of the Intel 2114, which he had copied. Dunlap was unaware of any other company having copied the 2114E version. At one point during their meeting at NSC, Dunlap noticed Gopal taking a piece of masking tape to cover up the word "Intel" on one of the overlays he had brought. From NSC, the three adjourned to a nearby coffeeshop, where they again reviewed the transaction; Gopal reassured Dunlap as to the genuineness of the Intel information being sold, and a final meeting was set for the next day.
Later on September 26, Moore telephoned Worth to let him know that "the deal was on, that Tom [Dunlap] had been happy with what he had seen and they made a deal." That was the last conversation between the two.
On September 27, Dunlap went to appellant's condominium to meet with Moore and Gopal. The final agreement had been that Dunlap would bring $100,000 in traveler's checks and Gopal would bring a data base tape, a composite plot and a picture. Dunlap actually brought $25,000 for the data base tape, and explained he wanted to bring the tape back to NSC to verify its contents, after which he said he would return with the additional $75,000. As Dunlap gave the $25,000 to Moore, Gopal gave Dunlap the data base tape and Dunlap said, "we had a deal." This latter comment was the cue for the police, who had been monitoring the conversations from outside, to make...
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