Apple is suing a former employee who left for Chinese smartphone maker Oppo on the claim that he stole ‘Apple’s trade secrets relating to Apple Watch and to disclose them to his new employers.’ The lawsuit claims that sensor system architect Chen Shi accessed confidential documents on Apple’s health sensing technologies and disclosed them to Oppo before leaving Cupertino in June so that his new employers could develop a competing wearable device.
‘Concealing his impending employment with a direct competitor, Dr Shi set up and attended dozens of one-on-one meetings with Apple Watch technical team members to learn about their ongoing research,’ the complaint by Apple reads.
Apple says just three days before his departure, Shi ‘downloaded 63 documents from a protected Box folder. He then transferred them to a USB drive one day before his departure.’
The company further claims that before downloading confidential information off its networks, Shi searched the internet for terms like ‘how to wipe out a MacBook’ and ‘Can somebody see if I’ve opened a file on a shared drive?’
Apple claims that Oppo was also aware of Shi’s conduct, ‘which they condoned and encouraged.’ In a text sent on 4 June 2025 by Shi to Zijing Zeng, Ph.D., Oppo’s Vice-President of Health, the techie is said to have revealed that he was conducting a lot of one-on-one meetings with many Apple executives and was trying to collect as much information as possible.
‘Lately, I’ve also been reviewing various internal materials and doing a lot of 1:1 meetings in an effort to collect as much information as possible—will share with you all later,’ the text translated from Apple reads.
In his role as a sensor system architect, Apple says that Shi oversaw the development of many ‘cutting edge health sensor technology’ which included highly confidential roadmaps, design and development documents and specifications for ECG sensor technology.
Shi now leads a team working on sensing technology at Oppo. In his resignation letter to the company, Shi claimed that he was leaving ‘due to personal and family reasons’
