California law specifically prohibits theft of trade secrets and includes within that prohibition the offer or solicitation of bribery to obtain such secrets. (Pen. Code, § 499c.)

The statute simply defines it as a form of “theft” for any person to intend to deprive, an owner of control of a trade secret, or to intend to appropriate it to his/her own use by taking it without authorization, by fraudulently appropriating it where entrusted to him/her, unlawfully gaining access to it, and by causing it to be copied. (Pen. Code, § 499c(b).)

Punishment for Bribery in 2002 the California Supreme Court held that the minimum sentencing provisions of Penal Code section 1203.044 applied to such thefts. Hence, where the value of the trade secret taken in a single transaction exceeds $ 100,000, probation cannot be granted “except in unusual cases,” and where granted must include a six-month minimum jail term.The monetary limits do not apply to only cash, but to the market value of the trade secrets–a potentially momentous minimum sentencing decision given the prevalence of securities and other non-cash instruments in white-collar crime. (See People v. Farell (2002) 28 Cal.4th 381 [121 Cal.Rptr.2d 603].)