(Bloomberg) – Apple Inc. blamed startup Rivos Inc. in “stealth mode” in a lawsuit that she caught her engineers stealing trade secrets used to develop her own chip designs that make the iPhone more powerful.
Rivos, which has hired dozens of Apple engineers, launched a “coordinated campaign” in June 2021 aimed at Apple employees, said the Cupertino-based, California-based company.
Former employees leave to join Rivos after stealing “highly sensitive” property and trade secret information about Apple’s “chip-to-chip” designs, including its M1 laptop and A15 mobile phone chips, according to a complaint filed with the federal government. court in San. Jose, California.
“Apple has dedicated billions of dollars to this critical work,” the company said.
Two former Apple engineers who joined Rivos for “parallel roles” have been named as defendants in a case of alleged breach of intellectual property agreements they have signed. The agreements require them to refrain from copying confidential private information during their stay at the company and to return such materials before leaving, Apple claims.
Rivos and Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The complaint against Rivos is the latest from Apple, aimed at former employees who left to join start-ups.
Apple is suing former chip CEO Gerard Williams III in 2019 for allegedly betraying the company by launching a startup that develops data center processors after enticing employees to join his venture. This dispute will be heard in the court of San Jose in October 2023.
Read more: Apple accuses the former CEO of suing his staff for poaching
Some Apple employees hired by Rivos transferred gigabytes of trade secret data, including presentations of current and unreleased chip designs, to USB devices and their personal storage devices before leaving, the company said.
“Apple has reason to believe that Rivos has instructed at least some Apple employees to download and install encrypted communications applications (such as the Signal application) before communicating with them,” the technology giant said in a complaint.
The case was announced earlier by Reuters.
The case is Apple Inc. v. Rivos Inc., 22-cv-2637, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
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