Apple accuses ex-engineer of stealing chip secrets via AirDrop and Time Machine

IT House reported on May 3 that Apple sued a startup called Rivos on the grounds that it poached engineers who had access to company secrets. According to the indictment, Apple believes that former employees stole Apple’s proprietary (patented) information during the hiring process at the request of Rivos.

While not much is known about Rivos, the startup’s job postings are primarily aimed at chip engineers. Apple said the startup wanted to design chips that could compete with itself, but they believed Rivos was using Apple’s patent information to design the chips.

IT House understands that Apple wrote in the indictment: “Starting in June 2021, Rivos has been preparing for this operation, targeting Apple employees who have the ability to obtain Apple’s chip design patents and trade secrets.”

Before the lawsuit, Apple also sent a letter to Rivos explaining nondisclosure agreements signed by its former employees, but the startup did not respond.

In the lawsuit, Apple also alleges that former employees poached by Rivos stole “multi-gigabytes (gigabytes) of sensitive SoC specification and design files.”

Some use multiple USB storage drives to transfer material to personal devices, use Apple’s proprietary specifications stored in collaboration apps, and use AirDrop to transfer files to personal devices. Someone saves tons of presentations about existing and unreleased Apple SoCs (marked as Apple Proprietary and Confidential) to their personal cloud drive. One guy even had a complete Time Machine backup of his entire Apple device to his personal external drive.

In the lawsuit against Rivos, Apple cited two former engineers who joined Rivos’ chip team last fall. Apple said its lawsuit seeks to “recover its trade secrets, protect them from further disclosure, and expose the full extent of their use in an attempt to mitigate the harm that has and will occur.”