Intellectual property theft part of 'a pattern of dubious tactics" by Huawei, claims report

New claims of intellectual property theft come two weeks after FBI sting was revealed

Huawei has been accused of running "a pattern of dubious tactics" to steal intellectual property from rivals - targeting Apple and Apple's suppliers in particular.

That's according to The Information, which has presented a litany of evidence to support the allegation.

While intellectual property theft is not new, Huawei is "more brazen" and has an "elaborate system of seeking out secret information", according to the report.

It suggests that a Huawei engineer in the company's own smartwatch project tracked down the supplier of a heart-rate sensor for the Apple Watch and sought to gain technical information from them. "They were trying their luck, but we wouldn't tell them anything," the supplier told The Information.

The company has also approached assembly line workers to get information about parts built-in to Apple products, asking them to draw the parts rather than risk getting caught taking them out of the factory, where security is tight.

In another case, a former Apple employee who applied for a position at Huawei claims that the job interview was less about him and the contents of his curriculum vitae than it was about Apple's product roadmap.

The report also suggested that a key component of Huawei's Apple MacBook-like MateBook Pro was copied directly.

The US Department of Justice claims that Huawei has a formal programme internally that rewards staff for stealing confidential information. It's charge sheet against the company's chief financial officer, Meng Wangzhou, includes not just sanctions busting, but also charges related to the theft of technology.

In response to the report in The Information, a Huawei spokesperson said: "In conducting research and development, Huawei employees must search and use publicly available information and respect third-party intellectual property per our business-conduct guidelines."

The report is the latest in a series of claims against Huawei, covering not just intellectual property theft, but also the security of some of its communications products.

Two weeks ago, it was alleged in a Bloomberg report that Huawei not only sought to appropriate the secret behind a ‘diamond glass' invention that a company wanted to supply for Huawei's smartphones, but hinted that it passed on a sample of the product to China's intelligence services.