You mean like when the NSA is spying on Airbus for Boeing? :)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32542140

(it's particularly hilarious (in the bad way), that German secret services were participating in spying as well)

Thankfully some countries (here: Brazil) have some spine to react to it: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/saab-wins-brazil-je...

When I was at uni in the 90s I remember hearing one of our lecturers tell stories about visitors to British Aerospace being caught wearing shoes with sticky soles to try and capture small amounts of swarf for industrial espionage.

So yes, that does happen.

You can steal ‘know’ but you can’t so easily steal ‘knowhow’. I could easily find all the information that I theoretically need to make a wooden chair. But to actually make it successfully would require years of practice at carpentry. At first, I can expect results comparable to Homer Simpson’s spice rack.

There may be a fraction of this, but the great thing about science is that it is verifiable.