Apple has filed a lawsuit against a former employee and Chinese tech company OPPO, accusing them of conspiring to steal confidential information about the Apple Watch.
The former staff member, Dr. Chen Shi, worked as a sensor system architect at Apple. According to the complaint, Shi had access to sensitive projects, including health-sensing technologies and ECG development.
Apple says he began attending extra meetings with the Apple Watch team shortly before resigning in June, despite already securing a position at OPPO.
Court filings claim that Shi downloaded 63 confidential documents from a protected folder late one night, just three days before leaving.
He allegedly transferred them to a USB drive the day before his resignation. In his exit letter, Shi told Apple he was leaving for “personal and family reasons” and said he was moving back to China to care for his parents.
However, Apple says evidence shows otherwise. Messages recovered from Shi’s Apple-issued iPhone and communications with OPPO executives suggest he was actively gathering information for his next employer.
In one exchange, Shi allegedly wrote (in Chinese) 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,” promising to share the data with OPPO.
Apple alleges that OPPO’s vice president of health responded positively, showing the company approved of the plan.
Apple further claims that Shi searched online for ways to erase his MacBook and cover his tracks, using queries like “how to wipe out macbook” and “can somebody see if I’ve opened a file on a shared drive?” before departing.
Shi is now reportedly leading a team at OPPO working on sensing technology, an area Apple argues directly benefits from the trade secrets he allegedly took. Apple believes the stolen data could help OPPO accelerate the development of a competing smartwatch.
The full document of Apple’s lawsuit against OPPO can be accessed here.
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