Apple Inc has sued Rivos, a ‘stealth mode’ startup, for allegedly stealing trade secrets about Apple’s A15 and M1 system-on-chip (SoC) design by poaching former Apple engineers. Rivos is still in stealth mode, but it has reportedly employed over 40 former Apple engineers in the last year. As per the lawsuit, it had allegedly asked some of them to take gigabytes worth of classified data from Apple.
The lawsuit was filed last Friday in which Apple said that Rivos sought to hire Apple engineers with access to the tech giant's SoC trade secrets. The suit named two former engineers, Bhasi Kaithamana and Ricky Wen, who have been accused of allegedly taking thousands of files with SoC designs and other confidential information to Rivos, as per a Reuters report.
The lawsuit also mentions that several other unnamed Rivos employees took confidential documents when they left Apple, and that the accused tried to cover their tracks by wiping data from their Apple-issued devices.
The alleged theft happened by primarily loading the documents on to "multiple USB storage drives" during the accused duo’s last days at Apple. The AirDrop was also used for some transfers.
Apple has claimed in the lawsuit that Rivos had instructed some of the employees to acquire apps for encrypted communications, Apple Insider reported.
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In a particular case, Apple said the accused searched on the internet "when you lost a lawsuit what do you have to pay" and "poach
There’s not much known about Rivos, but Apple in its lawsuit said that the company was founded in May 2021. According to the Rivos website, the company is based in Mountain View, California, and is hiring "full-time and internship positions available in Austin, TX and Mountain View, CA."
The CTO of Rivos is Belli Kuttanna, a former fellow at Intel, and the CEO is Puneet Kumar who previously worked at Google as a director for Chrome OS, pcmag.com reported.
The lawsuit alleges breach of contract against the individual defendants, misappropriation of trade secrets against the two former employees as well as Rivos. Apple is seeking an undisclosed amount in damages. It is also seeking a "reasonable royalty" for the misappropriation of trade secrets by Rivos, along with injunctions to prevent future use of the secrets.
Apple said that the stolen secrets could be used to "significantly accelerate" the development of competing SoCs and has asked the court to block Rivos from using its trade secrets, as per Reuters. It has also asked the court to order its former employees to return its property.
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