Apple claims ex-employee, China’s Oppo stole trade secrets

Apple accused smartphone maker Oppo in a lawsuit of poaching a highly paid member of the Apple Watch team and encouraging him to steal trade secrets for his new job with the Chinese firm.

Sensor system architect Chen Shi secretly accessed confidential documents on Apple’s health-sensing technologies for Oppo’s benefit to develop a competing wearable device before departing Apple in June, according to a complaint filed on Thursday (Aug 21) in federal court in San Jose, California.

“Concealing his impending employment with a direct competitor, Dr Shi set up and attended dozens of one-on-one meetings with Apple Watch technical team members to learn about their ongoing research,” according to the complaint.

In addition, “late at night, just three days before leaving Apple, Dr Shi downloaded 63 documents from a protected Box folder”, according to the complaint. “He then transferred them to a USB drive one day before his departure.”

Apple has filed numerous suits in recent years, accusing ex-employees and rival companies of breaching contracts and stealing valuable intellectual property. At least three of the iPhone maker’s former engineers who worked on its now abandoned electric vehicle autonomous driving project have been criminally prosecuted for allegedly taking secrets to China. The tech giant has also been locked in a court battle with Irvine, California-based Masimo since 2020 over smartwatch technology.

Shi concealed his defection to Oppo, known as Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, by falsely telling his colleagues at Cupertino, California-based Apple that he was returning to China to take care of his ageing parents, according to the complaint.

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Apple says Shi violated a confidentiality and IP agreement, and that Oppo knew of and encouraged his activities.

Shi could not immediately be reached for comment via LinkedIn, where a profile appearing to belong to him says he has worked at Apple since 2020.

Oppo and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple alleges in the complaint that Shi wrote in a message in Chinese to Oppo’s vice-president of health before leaving Apple that he had 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.”

The Oppo executive wrote “alright” in response and sent an “OK” emoji, according to the complaint.

Allowing the actions of Shi and Oppo “to go unpunished would undermine Apple’s commitment to innovation and its substantial investments in pioneering technologies such as Apple Watch”, Apple said in the complaint. “It would also risk destroying the value of Apple’s trade secrets and provide a competitor with an unfair advantage.”

After departing Apple, Shi joined Oppo’s research centre in Silicon Valley, which operates under the Oppo and InnoPeak brands, according to the complaint. BLOOMBERG