Chip startup Rivos sues Apple Inc. alleging that the tech giant is forcing workers to sign restrictive agreements that prevent them from working elsewhere and stifle emerging companies that hire their workers. The countersuit filed by Rivos and six ex-Apple employees in a federal court in San Jose on Friday escalates a bitter feud over trade secrets that began when Apple last year sued Rivos and former employees who joined the startup. Rivos is pushing back by asking the court to rule that Apple’s “overbroad” non-disclosure and non-solicitation agreements are unenforceable.
“Afraid of any threat of legitimate competition in the marketplace, and hoping to frighten and send a message to employees who might dare leave Apple to work elsewhere, Apple has resorted to efforts to target emerging startups through anti-competitive measures, including illegally restricting employee mobility,” Rivos said in his countersuit.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.
Apple accused the startup and its employees in a lawsuit of luring away its engineers and stealing proprietary information used to develop its own chip designs. The dispute centers on system-on-chip technology that shrinks multiple computing elements into a small chip, which Apple says it has invested billions of dollars in to make its devices more powerful.
Rivos claims that Apple’s Intellectual Property Agreement, which Apple employees sign as a condition of employment, is “comprehensive and covers everything ‘learned’ during the course of employment, regardless of whether it is a trade secret.” The agreement includes a non-solicitation clause, “which is designed to, and used by Apple, to restrict employee mobility and competition,” Rivos said in its countersuit.
Read more: Apple advances chip secrets lawsuit against ex-employees
In addition, Apple allows employees to store work documents in their iCloud and iMessage accounts, but does not inspect their data and messages when they leave, Rivos said.
Apple had sued Gerard Williams III, who left his job as chief chip architect at Apple and co-founded chip startup Nuvia Inc., in a California court in 2019 for theft of trade secrets. Williams had also hit back in a lawsuit, saying that Apple’s lawsuit aims to “stifle the creation of new technologies and solutions by a new company, and to limit the freedom of entrepreneurs to seek more satisfying employment.”
Apple asked the Santa Clara County District Court in April to dismiss the lawsuit against Williams.
Apple has used the same ‘playbook’ used against Nuvia and Williams to attack Rivos, the startup claims.
In August, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila dismissed Apple’s trade secret claims against Rivos, but gave the iPhone maker a chance to file a revised complaint.
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