Overview#
A semiconductor company's security team notices that a senior engineer accepted a position at a competitor based in a country known for state-sponsored technology acquisition. In the three weeks after she gave notice, her access to source code repositories tripled. She downloaded design documentation for products still in development. She also emailed herself a compressed archive from her work account at 11pm on her last Friday. Each action had a plausible innocent explanation. Together, they form a trade secret theft case. Argus Intellectual Property Theft Investigation connects those dots before the company's competitive advantage walks out the door.
The platform provides an advanced investigation environment for trade secret theft, counterfeiting operations, economic espionage, and patent/trademark enforcement. It enables corporate security teams, law enforcement, and legal professionals to detect, investigate, and prosecute intellectual property crimes across digital and physical domains.
Intellectual property represents organisations' most valuable competitive assets, and theft of trade secrets and counterfeiting operations cost the global economy hundreds of billions annually. The platform provides the investigative capabilities needed to protect these assets and pursue enforcement actions against those who misappropriate them.
Open Standards#
- OASIS STIX 2.1 / TAXII 2.1: Threat-intelligence indicators, threat-actor profiles, and intelligence bundles are ingested, stored, and exported using the Structured Threat Information Expression and Trusted Automated eXchange of Intelligence Information specifications, enabling interoperability with external threat-sharing platforms and ISAC feeds.
- MITRE ATT&CK: Threat-actor profiles are tagged with ATT&CK technique and tactic identifiers (TTPs), allowing investigators to map suspected insider or state-sponsored activity against the globally recognised adversary behaviour framework.
- RFC 3161 (Internet X.509 PKI Time-Stamp Protocol): Evidence exports optionally embed RFC 3161 trusted-timestamp tokens, providing cryptographically verifiable proof of the time at which digital evidence was collected or packaged, supporting admissibility in legal proceedings.
- ISO 19005 (PDF/A): Prosecution and disclosure packages are rendered in ISO 19005-compliant PDF/A variants (1B, 2B, 3B, or 4F), meeting archival and court-filing requirements for long-term-readable, self-contained documents.
- FIPS 180-4 SHA-256: All evidence files, chain-of-custody entries, and disclosure manifests are integrity-protected using SHA-256 digests, with Merkle-tree roots providing tamper-evident audit trails across the evidence corpus.
- Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF / ISO 12234-2): Metadata extraction from image evidence reads EXIF fields including GPS coordinates, capture timestamps, and camera model, preserving provenance data critical to corroborating physical location and time of activity.
- ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3: Country codes are stored against entity profiles, threat actors, and financial traces using the ISO 3166-1 three-letter standard, supporting consistent cross-border investigation attribution and reporting.
Last Reviewed: 2026-02-05 Last Updated: 2026-04-14
Key Features#
Trade Secret Protection#
- Trade secret theft detection monitoring for unauthorised access, copying, and exfiltration of proprietary information
- Economic espionage investigation tools for state-sponsored and corporate intelligence gathering operations
- Digital forensics for identifying data theft, unauthorised transfers, and evidence destruction
- Employee departure monitoring for signs of trade secret misappropriation during job transitions
- Competitive intelligence boundary monitoring distinguishing legitimate research from improper acquisition
- Source code repository monitoring detecting unusual cloning, downloading, or branching activity
- Design document and blueprint access tracking with alert thresholds for sensitive materials
Counterfeiting and Piracy#
- Counterfeiting operation analysis mapping manufacturing, distribution, and sales networks
- Supply chain analysis identifying counterfeit products entering legitimate distribution channels
- Online marketplace and e-commerce monitoring for IP-infringing products and content
- Brand protection monitoring across digital platforms, social media, and web domains
- Product authentication analysis supporting identification of counterfeit goods
Investigation and Analysis#
- Patent and trademark infringement investigation with evidence collection and documentation
- Network analysis mapping relationships between counterfeit operations, distributors, and sellers
- Financial investigation tracing proceeds of IP theft and counterfeiting for asset recovery
- International coordination for cross-border IP theft and counterfeiting investigations
- Damage quantification and lost revenue analysis for civil litigation and criminal sentencing
- Competitor intelligence analysis identifying potential recipients of stolen intellectual property
- International trade secret theft tracking with cross-border investigation coordination
Evidence and Prosecution#
- Evidence packaging meeting federal prosecution standards for Economic Espionage Act and Lanham Act cases
- Chain of custody documentation for physical and digital evidence across jurisdictions
- Expert witness support with analytical findings presentation and testimony preparation
- Civil litigation support including preliminary injunction evidence and discovery documentation
- Customs referral packages for border seizure of infringing goods
- Damage assessment tools quantifying financial impact for civil litigation and criminal sentencing
- Industry coordination through IP protection organisations and sharing networks
- Recurring monitoring programmes for ongoing infringement detection across marketplaces and platforms
- Academic and research IP protection for university technology transfer and research partnerships
Use Cases#
Trade Secret Theft Investigation. Investigate suspected theft of proprietary information through digital forensics, access monitoring, employee activity analysis, and evidence documentation for civil litigation or criminal prosecution. Build comprehensive timelines showing the acquisition and transfer of protected information.
Counterfeiting Operation Disruption. Map counterfeiting networks from manufacturing through distribution and retail, coordinating enforcement actions with law enforcement and customs authorities to disrupt supply chains. Quantify the scope and financial impact of counterfeiting operations.
Economic Espionage Response. Investigate corporate and state-sponsored espionage activities targeting proprietary technology, research, and competitive intelligence with specialised tradecraft analysis and evidence collection. Coordinate with federal law enforcement for national security implications.
Online IP Enforcement. Monitor e-commerce platforms, social media, and websites for trademark infringement, counterfeit products, and pirated content, coordinating takedown actions and building cases against repeat infringers. Track enforcement effectiveness across platforms.
Competitive Intelligence. Monitor public and dark web sources for indications that organisational intellectual property has been compromised, including product replications, patent filings by competitors, and marketplace listings of proprietary data. Enable rapid response to limit further exposure.
Integration#
- Connects with data loss prevention and insider threat monitoring systems for detection
- Integrates with digital forensics and evidence management platforms for investigation
- Links to trademark and patent databases for infringement verification and prior art analysis
- Works with customs and border protection systems for counterfeit interdiction coordination
- Supports coordination with federal law enforcement for criminal IP cases
- Compatible with e-commerce platform reporting tools for online enforcement actions
- Feeds into organisational dashboards for IP protection programme effectiveness monitoring
- Supports expert witness preparation with technical analysis documentation and evidence presentation
- Dark web marketplace monitoring for stolen trade secrets and proprietary data listings
- International Trade Commission coordination for Section 337 enforcement actions
- Supports industry consortium participation for collaborative IP protection initiatives