Apple sues ex-employee for stealing trade secrets for rival OPPO
What's the story
Apple has filed a lawsuit against Dr. Chen Shi, a former employee of its Apple Watch team who later joined Chinese tech giant OPPO. The iPhone maker claims that Shi "conspired to steal Apple's trade secrets relating to Apple Watch and disclose them to his new employers." The lawsuit alleges that he attended dozens of meetings with technical members on the Apple Watch team before leaving for OPPO.
Accusations
Shi downloaded confidential documents before leaving Apple
The lawsuit also claims that Shi downloaded 63 documents from a protected Box folder onto a USB drive. He allegedly told OPPO he was trying to "collect as much information as possible" before starting his job. The former Apple employee also searched for terms like "how to wipe out macbook" and "Can somebody see if I've opened a file on a shared drive?" from his Apple-issued MacBook before leaving the company.
Career transition
Shi had access to sensitive information related to Apple Watch
Shi was a sensor system architect at Apple, where he had access to the development of advanced health sensor technology. This included confidential roadmaps, design documents, and specifications for ECG sensor tech. He now leads a team working on sensing technology at OPPO. Apple claims it also found messages from OPPO demonstrating that it "encouraged, approved, and agreed to Shi's plan to collect Apple's proprietary information before leaving Apple."