Another former Apple employee is getting sued for trade secret theft. This time, it"s Dr. Chen Shi, alongside his new employers, Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. (Oppo) and InnoPeak Technology, Inc.
According to the lawsuit, Dr. Shi, who worked on the Apple Watch team as a Sensor System Architect, conspired to steal proprietary information and hand it over to Oppo, Apple"s competitor in the wearables market.
This comes weeks after Apple sued Mr. Di Liu, a former senior system product design engineer on the Vision Pro team, accusing him of stealing secrets before joining Snap Inc. Dr. Shi allegedly began secretly communicating with senior leadership at Oppo, while still working at Apple in April.
The complaint says he attended meetings with the Apple Watch technical team to gather intel and downloaded 63 sensitive documents from a protected company server, just days before he left the Cupertino giant on June 27.
The stolen docs included info regarding Apple"s custom-designed chips, unreleased products and features, and technical details for ECG and PPG sensors. Apple also pointed a finger at Dr. Zijing Zeng, Oppo"s VP of Health, whom Dr. Shi was communicating with, alleging Zeng simply responded "alright" and with an "OK" emoji to the following message from Shi (translated):
I"m planning to start on 6/30. This week I"ll inform my team about my resignation. Lately, I"ve also been reviewing various internal materials and doing a lot of 1:1 meetings in an effort to collect as much information as possible—will share with you all later.
After the data grab, the lawsuit claims Dr. Shi tried to cover his tracks by searching the internet for "how to wipe out macbook" and "Can somebody see if I"ve opened a file on a shared drive?". He also deleted the folder of stolen files from his work laptop after transferring it to an external USB drive. He then lied to co-workers that he was leaving to take care of his elderly parents in China. For the record, Dr. Liu, the ex-Vision Pro engineer, also did something similar, telling his team he was leaving to focus on family and health.
Apple found out about all this through a forensic investigation. The company says it discovered the plot by reviewing file download logs and the contents of Dr. Shi"s work-issued MacBook and iPhone.
The remedies the company is seeking are quite standard for this kind of fiasco: a court-ordered prohibition to stop Oppo and Shi from using the trade secrets, financial damages, and punitive damages meant to punish them for the alleged theft. Apple is also demanding a jury trial to hear the case.