Four Pillars Enterprise Co. is a Taiwanese company owned by Pin Yen Yang. Avery Dennison, Inc., a U.S. corporation, is one of Four Pillarss chief competitors in the manufacture of adhesives. In 1989, Victor Lee, an Avery employee, met Yang and Yangs daughter Hwei Chen. They agreed to pay Lee $25,000 a year to serve as a consultant to Four Pillars. Over the next eight years, Lee supplied the Yangs with confidential Avery reports, including information that Four Pillars used to make a new adhesive that had been developed by Avery. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confronted Lee, and he agreed to cooperate in an operation to catch the Yangs. When Lee next met the Yangs, he showed them documents provided by the FBI. The documents bore confidential stamps, and Lee said that they were Averys confidential property. The FBI arrested the Yangs with the documents in their possession. The Yangs and Four Pillars were charged with, among other crimes, the attempted theft of trade secrets. [United States v. Yang, 281 F.3d 534 (6th Cir. 2002)]

1. The defendants argued in part that it was impossible for them to have committed this crime because the documents were not actually trade secrets. To prove attempt to commit a crime, or to prove any other crime, the government must establish (1) the intent to engage in criminal activity, and (2) the commission of one or more overt acts towards the commission of the offense. Based on this definition, should the court acquit the defendants? Please explain why or why not, making sure to apply the elements of the definition of attempt to the specific facts in this case.

2. Could Avery also have a potential civil cause of action against the Yangs? What type of remedies would they ask for?