Apple's Upcoming iPhone and Possession of Stolen Goods

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm interested in electronic gadgets. One of my favorites is my Apple iPhone, so I've watched with great interest the saga unfolding over at Gizmodo, a leading gadget blog. (This will eventually connect to North Carolina criminal law, I promise.) The basic facts appear to be as follows: Apple's working on its next-generation iPhone, which has been rumored to have lots of fantastic new features, like a super-high-resolution screen, a front-facing camera for videoconferencing, etc. An Apple employee -- who happens to be an N.C. State alumnus -- was field-testing a prototype of the new phone. He went to a bar in Redwood City, California, likely drank a few beers, and accidentally left his phone on his bar stool when he headed out. Another patron picked up the phone, and when the Apple employee didn't come back, took it home with him. He eventually noticed that it wasn't a current model iPhone, made some effort to contact Apple about it -- more on which below -- and after he couldn't get through to anyone in authority, decided to sell it to Gizmodo for $5,000. Gizmodo examined and disassembled the phone, and posted about it in exhaustive detail. Eventually, Apple asked for the phone back, and Gizmodo agreed to return it. There's been some talk about whether Apple will sue Gizmodo under California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act, which at least one commentator believes "makes it pretty clear that buying a stolen prototype, determining it is [...]