A software engineer who had worked in the Silicon Valley will spend the next two years in prison. Xiaodong Sheldon Meng received the sentence Wednesday under an espionage law passed 12 years ago.

Federal prosecutors proposed the two-year sentence and U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel agreed with them and sent the former software engineer behind bars on charges of stealing military technology and trying to sell it to the Chinese government.

Meng, who lives in Cupertino and is a Canadian citizen, is a Chinese national. The 44-year-old engineer had pleaded guilty in 2007 to violating the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 and federal export laws. The prison term was the maximum that prosecutors said they would seek after Meng’s agreement to plead guilty.

The company from which Meng has stolen the military intelligence was Quantum 3D.

The Economic Espionage Act passed in 1996 by Congress makes it illegal to steal trade secrets that would benefit a foreign government.

According to court documents, Meng stole from his former employer a trade secret known as "Mantis," a product used in the military training process. The software thief installed a demonstration unit of Mantis on the China Navy Research Center site after he no longer worked for Quantum 3D.

"The United States maintains a military advantage during night time operations," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski wrote in his sentencing memorandum. "In the wrong hands, this advantage would be lost."

Meng will also serve three years of parole after the two years in jail and will also have to pay a $10,000 fine.