By: Ed Marcum

Federal prosecutors painted two tire company engineers as industrial thieves, stealing trade secrets from Goodyear in a desperate bid to produce tire-making machinery for a Chinese company on short notice.

Defense attorneys portrayed Clark Alan Roberts, 47, and Sean Edward Howley, 39, as hardworking family men who may have made a mistake by photographing equipment at a Topeka, Kan., Goodyear plant, but they contend that the machinery in question was designed in 1966, widely distributed to other companies, and would not qualify as a trade secret under the Economic Espionage Act, which the two men are accused of violating.

To read the complete news article from Knoxvillebiz, please click here.