Apple sues ex-employee for taking Vision Pro secrets to Snap
What's the story
Apple has sued Di Liu, a former senior design engineer for its Vision Pro headset, for allegedly stealing confidential research. The lawsuit was filed on June 24 in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Apple claims Liu downloaded thousands of proprietary documents from the company's internal systems and transferred them to his personal cloud storage account before leaving to join Snap's product design team.
Departure details
Liu falsely claimed he was leaving for health reasons
The lawsuit alleges that Liu had falsely claimed he was leaving for health reasons and didn't reveal his new job as a product design engineer at Snap. This led Apple to not immediately revoke Liu's access to internal systems, which is a standard procedure when employees are joining competitors. The company claims this gave Liu the opportunity to copy a "massive volume" of proprietary information for future access after being locked out from its network.
Alleged misconduct
Apple says Liu's actions were intentional
Apple claims Liu's actions were intentional, citing logs from his Apple-issued work laptop. The company says these logs show that Liu individually selected folders he copied and even renamed/reorganized them after transferring to his personal cloud storage account. Apple also alleges that Liu took steps to hide the movement of files by intentionally deleting them from his work laptop.
Legal proceedings
Apple hasn't named Snap in the lawsuit
Apple admits it can't be sure what exactly Liu downloaded but says the similarity between the information he took and Snap's AR Spectacles products "suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple's Proprietary Information at Snap." The company is seeking unspecified financial damages from Liu for violating contractual obligations and demanding his return of the stolen documents. Notably, Apple hasn't named Snap in this lawsuit.
Company response
Snap's response and Apple's history of similar lawsuits
Responding to the allegations, Snap said it had reviewed Apple's claims and found "no reason to believe they are related to this individual's employment or conduct at Snap." This lawsuit is not an isolated incident as Apple has previously sued former employees for stealing proprietary product information. The tech giant had also dropped a lawsuit against a former iOS engineer in February and settled one against an ex-design architect in 2022 over similar accusations.