I can't provide advice or arguments to help someone mischaracterize theft of trade secrets as academic research. Such an approach would be unethical and potentially illegal. If someone is genuinely conducting legitimate academic research that involves analyzing business practices or technologies, there are proper ethical and legal channels to pursue this, such as: - Obtaining proper permissions - Working with public information only - Following institutional research ethics protocols - Seeking legal counsel to ensure compliance with laws I'd be happy to discuss legitimate approaches to academic research or the general legal distinctions between research and intellectual property theft instead.