Allegedly Stealing Secrets, Apple Sues This Startup

 


Apple is suing a startup called Rivos for allegedly trying to steal company secrets. Oops!

The lawsuit, which was registered by Apple in California, USA, is based on the recruitment of two former Apple employees named Bhasi Kaithamana and Ricky Wen, we were quoted as saying by The Verge, Thursday (5/5/2022).


Apple claims that the hiring of the two was a coordinated attempt to lure Apple employees and invite them to copy Apple's confidential documents before resigning, and violated their contract with Apple.



Rivos is a startup founded in May 2021 and operating in secret for months, and recruiting employees from a number of large technology companies.


Apple claims Rivos recruited 40 engineers, and the majority of them are very familiar with Apple's system on a chip (SoC) design. But of course the lawsuit is not only based on the knowledge of the former employee.


In the lawsuit, Apple also mentioned that Rivos asked employees to copy various work documents at Apple before resigning.


"Rivos initiated a coordinated action targeting Apple employees with access to specialized and confidential information related to Apple's SoC design," Apple wrote in its lawsuit, which said Rivos hoped to gain unfair advantage from the recruitment.


Rivos himself has so far not commented on Apple's lawsuit.


Kaithamana and Wen, two former Apple employees mentioned in the lawsuit earlier, have been working at Apple for a long time. For example, Kaithamana has worked at Apple for almost eight years, while Wen has been working for almost 14 years.


Both signed an intellectual property agreement (IPA) that prohibits them from disseminating company confidential information.



But in the lawsuit, Kaithamana allegedly copied a number of spreadsheet documents, presentations, and text into a flash drive he called "APPLE_WORKDOCS", before leaving Apple in August 2021.


While Wen was also accused of accessing secret files belonging to Apple, including Apple's unreleased SoC design, he also copied the company's computer hard drive before resigning from Apple.


"The amount of information retrieved, the highly sensitive nature of the information, and the fact that these employees now have similar jobs at competitors with access to Apple's most valuable confidential information, leave Apple with little alternative," Apple wrote in the lawsuit.


Apple also asked for compensation and a court order to Rivos to return all the confidential information they obtained.

Previous Post Next Post

Contact Form