Apple Has Filed A Lawsuit Against Risc-v Start-up Rivos, Which Reportedly Hired Several Former Senior Engineers From Apple Rivos Called Itself A "stealth Start-up". However, According To Apple, Rivos Not Only Poached Apple Employees, But Also Stole The Trade Secrets Of The Chip.
It Is Understood That This Lawsuit Filed On Friday Accused Rivos Of Employing More Than 40 Former Apple Employees In The Past Year And Engaging In System On Chip (SOC) Technology Competing With Apple's Own A-Series And M-series Chips.
Apple Said That At Least Two Former Engineers (bhasi Kaithamana And Wen Shih Chieh, Also Known As "Ricky") Took Thousands Of Megabytes Of Sensitive SOC Specifications And Design Documents In Their Last Days At Apple. Rivos Is Accused Of Launching A "coordination Campaign" To Get Employees To Provide Information About Apple's SoC Design.
It Is Said That The Employees Who Stole The Information Used USB Drives And Airdrop To Load Sensitive Apple Materials Onto Their Own Personal Devices. In Addition, They Also Stole Presentations About Unpublished SOC And Saved Them To Their Cloud Accounts. Apple Believes That Rivos Communicated With Some Employees Through Encrypted Information Applications, And Former Apple Employees Involved In Information Theft Tried To Erase Their Apple Devices In An Attempt To Cover Up Their Tracks.
In The Lawsuit, Apple Said It Had No Choice But To Sue, Because The Amount Of Information It Obtained Was Large, The Nature Of The Stolen Information Was Very Serious, And These Employees "now Perform The Same Duties For Their Competitors And Constantly Come Into Contact With Some Of Apple's Most Valuable Business Secrets".
Kaithamana, One Of The Specific Employees Accused Of Stealing Data, Allegedly Copied Thousands Of Apple Documents Containing Proprietary And Trade Secret Information In A Week In August 2021. He Copied The Files On His Work Computer And Then Transferred Them To A USB Drive. Apple's Lawsuit Details The Specific Data He Collected.
It Is Said That Wen, The Second Employee Who Stole Information, Transferred 390gb Of Data From His Computer Distributed By Apple To A Personal Hard Disk Before Leaving The Company. Apple Said He Stole Information About Current And Unpublished SOC And Obtained Proprietary Data Before File Transfer.
Other Apple Employees Not Explicitly Mentioned In The Lawsuit Also Connected The External Hard Disk To Their Apple Computer Shortly After Being Hired By Rivos And Obtained Apple's Trade Secret Information About SoC Design.
Apple Asked For An Injunction Against Employees Who Joined Rivos To Prevent Them From Continuing To Disclose Sensitive Data. It Also Asked Them To Compensate For The Losses Caused By The Theft Of Trade Secrets And Make Additional Compensation For The "unjust Enrichment" Rivos Obtained From Apple's Data. As An Alternative To Compensation, Apple Asked Rivos To Provide Reasonable Royalties. Due To Apple's Request For A Jury Trial, All Of You May Hear More About The Dispute Between Apple And Rivos.