Apple has decided to settle a lawsuit with Rivos, a chip startup that it accused of using its confidential data by poaching its employees. The lawsuit was filed almost two years ago in May 2022, and the two parties seem to have reached an agreement outside of court to settle the lawsuit.
Rivos is something called a “stealth mode” startup, which means it operates with a lot of secrecy. As such, we may not learn about the settlement terms anytime so on. Apple likely doesn’t want any more leakage of its private data as well, which could be another reason.
Apple settles potential chipset intelllectual property theft case
Bloomberg spotted a court filing that says that Apple and Rivos had decided to settle the matter. In the original lawsuit, Apple had said, “Starting in June 2021, Rivos began a coordinated campaign to target Apple employees with access to Apple proprietary and trade secret information about Apple’s SoC designs.”
Apple had accused that Rivos was running a “coordinated campaign to target Apple employees with access to Apple proprietary and trade secret information about Apple’s SoC designs.” The departed engineers had apparently taken a lot of Apple’s chipset design data.
It appears that the settlement involves Apple ensuring Rivos scrubs all of Apple’s confidential data. The report says, “”The agreement provides for remediation of Apple confidential information based on a forensic examination of Rivos systems and other activities,” according to the filing in federal court in San Jose, California. “The parties currently are working through that process.””
It definitely feels like a different approach than the one we’ve seen Apple take with the Apple Car trade secret theft recently. The process described in the filing is likely going to be intensive, as Apple ensures all of its data doesn’t get utilized without its consent.