By: Andrew Orlowski

A Chinese court has convicted three Chinese citizens, one a Foxconn employee, for trade secret theft.

Local companies released iPad 2 cases before the device had even been unveiled, and a Foxconn staffer was handed a jail sentence for handing over design secrets.

It's unusual for a Chinese court to prosecute locals over IP issues when a foreign business is the victim. It's even more unusual for these to relate to design.

The largest Chinese companies have regularly been accused of IP theft relating to technology. Huawei was been sued by Cisco and more recently by Motorola, while Ericsson has escalated its legal dispute with ZTE.

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