Apple claims that one of its former employees stole highly sensitive data about the Apple Vision Pro, leading to details emerging before the virtual glasses were even released. The phone giant has filed a lawsuit against engineer Di Liu in Santa Clara County Superior Court, alleging that the former engineer stole important Vision Pro trade secrets to develop the glasses for Snap Inc. The Silicon Valley company is seeking damages.
Di Liu worked at Apple on the development of the Apple Vision Pro
Liu worked at Apple for no less than seven years, rising to become a senior product design engineer. He even worked on the development of the Apple Vision Pro, which is why he is accused of stealing valuable data and passing it on to Snap, Snapchat’s parent company.
“Soon begin work at Snap in a product design role substantially similar to the one he held at Apple”
When Liu resigned, he withheld from Apple a job offer from Snap he had made two weeks earlier, which meant he would “soon begin work at Snap in a product design role substantially similar to the one he held at Apple,” according to the lawsuit, which continues: “Because Mr. Liu did not inform Apple of his departure to work on another company’s product, he was allowed to remain at Apple for the customary two-week leave period, rather than immediately lose access to Apple’s confidential information.”
The fact is that, according to Apple, Liu wasn’t leaving for health reasons, as he initially claimed, but rather because of the job offer he received at Snap. Three days before leaving Apple, Liu used his company credentials to download thousands of Apple documents containing trade secrets and upload them to his personal cloud storage, according to the lawsuit.
Liu intends to use Apple’s confidential information at Snap
Apple has a strict protocol for these situations to prevent data leaks and theft. Once an employee leaves the company, they lose all access to internal systems immediately after their resignation is given. “The overlap between the confidential Apple information Mr. Liu retained and Snap’s augmented reality (AR) products (where Mr. Liu is a product design engineer) suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple’s confidential information at Snap,” the lawsuit states.
Apple is seeking a court order requiring Liu to return allegedly stolen trade secrets
Apple accused Liu of breaching his confidentiality agreement and is seeking unspecified damages. The company is also seeking a court order requiring Liu to return allegedly stolen trade secrets and to submit his electronic devices and cloud accounts to an inspection to ensure they do not contain Apple’s confidential information. The lawsuit claims Liu also deleted files from his company laptop “that could have allowed Apple to determine what data Mr. Liu stole.”
This isn’t the first time something similar has happened at Apple. Last year, former Apple engineer Zhang Xiaolang received a four-month prison sentence for stealing Apple secrets while preparing to work for a Chinese startup.
Clearly, trying to obtain Apple data without the telephony ‘megalodon’ finding out is mission impossible.
