WizardOfAz

FBI Investigates If University Stole Trade Secrets


Mon Jul 21


The Federal Bureau of Investigation has conducted a preliminary investigation of allegations that the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit university, stole trade secrets from its former testing-software provider, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.

The university is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc.-University of Phoenix Online (UOPX), a Phoenix-based education concern.

Jan Caldwell, a special agent in the FBI's San Diego office, said no charges have been filed as a result of the investigation into the allegations by Chariot Software Group, a closely held San Diego company that built and maintained the university's online system for placement testing of newly enrolled students for several years.

Chariot has told the FBI that the university administrators supplied high- level access passwords for its proprietary system to another vendor, which then imitated Chariot's system in a supposed redesign for the university.

"The investigation is pretty well concluded, but there might be some tail-end things going on," Ms. Caldwell said. She declined to speculate on what the outcome would be.

Kenda Gonzales, Apollo's chief financial officer, denied Chariot's allegations and said no one at the university, or Apollo, had access to Chariot's proprietary software code. They had access only to the content of the tests, which was Apollo's property, she said, adding that the FBI hasn't contacted Apollo.

George Madden, Chariot's chief executive, said in an interview that its relationship with the university soured after a contentious May 2001 meeting with an Apollo executive to discuss a possible investment in or purchase of Chariot by Apollo. After Chariot's $10,000-a-month contract with the university expired in September 2002, the university replaced it with another vendor, closely held Phoenix-based Momentum Interactive.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...07210016000012