Apple is suing one of its former design engineers for allegedly stealing a trove of trade secrets that he then provided to his new employer, Snap. As reported by Di Liu left his role as senior product-design engineer after a seven-year stint with Apple, citing personal and family reasons in his resignation to the company.
Before leaving Apple, Liu had worked on the Vision Pro headset, where according to the lawsuit seen by SiliconValley.com he was given “access to various Apple technologies that are embodied in Apple Vision Pro or not yet released.” The lawsuit also claims that Liu did not disclose to Apple that two weeks prior to resigning he’d been offered a job by Snap — where the designer has been working since January 2025 according to his Linkedin profile — that was “substantially similar” to his role at the company he departed. As well as owning Snapchat, Snap also makes AR glasses called Spectacles, which are currently in their fifth generation.
According to the report, Liu’s decision not to inform Apple that he’d soon be working on a similar product to the Vision Pro at another company meant he was allowed to work his standard two-week departure period. The lawsuit alleges that three days before leaving the company, Liu used his company credentials to download “thousands” of Apple’s corporate documents, which he uploaded into personal cloud storage. It claims he likely intended to deliberately use Apple’s proprietary information at Snap, given the obvious similarities between the products, and added that he deleted files from his company laptop that could have implicated him.
Apple is reportedly seeking unspecified damages, as well as the return of the allegedly stolen trade secrets, and for its former employee’s devices and cloud accounts to be handed over for inspection. SiliconValley.com unsuccessfully approached Liu for comment, but Snap said it has read the claims in Apple’s lawsuit and had “no reason to believe they are related to this individual’s employment or conduct at Snap.”
This isn’t the first time Apple has sued an ex-employee. In 2019, the company Gerard Williams III, who worked on mobile chips for 10 years before joining NuVia Inc, of breaching his contract. Williams disputed the lawsuit and claimed Apple had been spying on his text messages. In 2022, Apple the then startup Rivos of poaching employees from its chip design division, with two former employees allegedly taking with them gigabytes of confidential data.
Earlier this year, an ex-Apple engineer an apology after confessing to leaking information about upcoming products to journalists during his eight years at the company. A lawsuit alleging that Andrew Aude leaked information about the then unreleased Vision Pro to reporters at The Wall Street Journal and The Information was dismissed.
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