Apple sues former employee for stealing company secrets

Apple is suing Chen Shi, an employee who used to work at the company’s Apple Watch division. Allegedly, he stole highly confidential and sensitive corporate information to hand over to his new employer, Oppo.

According to court documents, Shi worked as a Sensor System Architect on the Apple Watch between January 2020 and June 2025.

Over this period, he was entrusted with valuable trade secret information about the Apple Watch, including its design and development documentation, internal specifications, and product roadmap.

Shi was well aware of the sensitive nature of this information: before he started his first day at Apple, he signed a Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Agreement (IPA). Apple reminded him of this regularly.

In early June, Shi announced his resignation but never told anyone that Oppo would be his new employer. Instead, he lied to his former colleagues and told them he would return to China to see his parents and that he had no plans to seek new employment.

Before leaving the company, Shi downloaded 63 documents from a protected Box folder and transferred them to a USB drive. In addition, he spoke to dozens of Apple employees to learn about their ongoing research and latest developments. Shi’s new employer, Oppo, was well aware of his inappropriate behavior, but encouraged him to continue anyway.

“Trade secret theft by former employees for new employers is always wrong. Here, allowing Dr. Shi’s and the OPPO Defendants’ actions to go unpunished would undermine Apple’s commitment to innovation and its substantial investments in pioneering technologies like Apple Watch. It also would risk destroying the value of Apple’s trade secrets and provide a competitor with an unfair advantage,” Apple said in its indictment.

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Therefore, both Shi and Oppo are being sued for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract.

“We are aware of the recent lawsuit filed by Apple in California and have carefully reviewed the allegations in Apple's complaint. We have found no evidence establishing any connection between these allegations and the employee’s conduct during his employment at Oppo,” a spokesperson for Oppo told MacRumors.

“Oppo respects the trade secrets of all companies, including Apple, and Oppo has not misappropriated Apple's trade secrets. Oppo will actively cooperate with the legal process, and we are confident that fair judicial proceedings will clarify the facts,” he continued.

This is the third lawsuit that Apple has filed for stealing trade secrets in a short period of time. In June, Apple sued former Design Engineer Di Liu for stealing a “massive volume” of its trade secrets in the research and development of the company’s Vision Pro augmented-reality headset and handing this information over to his new employer, Snap.

Last month, Apple sued leaker Jon Prosser for stealing trade secrets related to iOS 26. He and an accomplice allegedly hacked into an Apple employee’s work phone, which contained a test version of iOS 26 and its latest Liquid Glass design. Images of this are said to have come into Prosser’s possession via a screen recording of a FaceTime call.