A buyer tries on the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headset in the course of the product launch on the Apple Retailer in New York Metropolis on February 2, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Pictures
Apple has accused a former engineer for its Imaginative and prescient Professional headset pc of stealing firm commerce secrets and techniques earlier than beginning a brand new job at Snap, in line with a lawsuit filed in California final week.
Within the June 24 court docket submitting, Apple accuses Di Liu, a senior design engineer, of downloading hundreds of paperwork in his ultimate days on the Cupertino firm final yr and saving them to his private cloud accounts.
This lawsuit is the most recent instance of Apple publicly going after a former worker for leaking inner data. Apple is an intensely secretive firm, and lawsuits like this one spotlight how the iPhone maker workout routines tight management over its inner data, even when it has to pursue authorized motion towards former workers.
Apple alleges that Liu did not inform the corporate when he resigned late final yr that he was headed to Snap, a competitor and maker of good glasses. Because of this, Apple didn’t shut off his entry to accounts and allowed him a customary two-week transition interval, which he used to obtain firm recordsdata, in line with the lawsuit.
“Worse nonetheless, the evaluate of Mr. Liu’s Apple-issued work laptop computer additionally exhibits that whereas sustaining entry to Apple’s Proprietary Data underneath false pretenses, he used his Apple credentials to exfiltrate hundreds of paperwork containing Proprietary Data from Apple’s safe file storage programs,” the iPhone maker’s legal professionals mentioned within the submitting.
Most of the recordsdata downloaded by Liu had codenames for Apple initiatives and described the corporate’s expertise, product design and provide chain, in line with the lawsuit. Apple says that every one staff comply with hold Apple recordsdata confidential and that Liu broke confidentiality agreements he made when he joined. Liu labored for Apple between 2017 and 2024, in line with the lawsuit.
Liu labored on Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional headset as a system product design engineer, per the submitting. Liu didn’t reply to a request for remark from CNBC.
Julia Boorstin tries Snap’s Spectacles AR glasses
Andrew Evers
Apple legal professionals wrote that Liu may use the commerce secrets and techniques in his work at Snap. Apple shouldn’t be suing Snap.
“The overlap between Apple’s Proprietary Data that Mr. Liu retained and Snap’s AR merchandise (for which Mr. Liu is a ‘product design engineer’) means that Mr. Liu intends to make use of Apple’s Proprietary Data at Snap,” in line with the submitting.
“We’ve got reviewed the allegations in Apple’s Grievance and don’t have any cause to imagine they’re associated to this particular person’s employment or conduct at Snap,” a Snap spokesperson mentioned in a press release.
Apple is searching for damages and for Liu to have his gadgets inspected by a forensic examiner to verify all of the commerce secrets and techniques are deleted.
The iPhone maker has sued a number of former staff lately for taking recordsdata after they left the corporate.
Apple settled with former engineer Simon Lancaster in 2022 over offering data to a journalist. Apple additionally sued a former worker, Andrew Aude, in 2024 over leaking particulars to the media. That lawsuit was dismissed after Aude apologized.
The Cupertino firm sued Rivos, a chip startup staffed by former Apple semiconductor staff, over its mental property, and settled in 2024.
Moreover not less than three former Apple staff have additionally been arrested and accused by the federal government of taking firm secrets and techniques and giving them to China-linked organizations. One pled responsible and was sentenced to 4 months in jail, and two are nonetheless in proceedings.
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