Did a former Apple employee bring smartwatch secrets with them when they began working for electronics company Oppo? That’s the question at the center of a lawsuit filed this month in the Northern California U.S. District Court. The lawsuit alleges that Dr. Chen Shi, who worked for Apple between 2020 and 2025, “undertook to gather highly sensitive information about Apple Watch to assist the OPPO Defendants’ development of a competing wearable.”
According to the lawsuit, Dr. Shi left Apple in June 2025 after being recruited by Oppo in April of the same year. As Juli Clover reports at MacRumors, Dr. Shi did not divulge that he was leaving for a competitor, instead citing familial reasons for a planned move to China. The lawsuit goes on to several internet searches that Dr. Shi made about privacy related to shared files and folders, including a search for an answer to the question, “Can somebody see if I’ve opened a file on a shared drive?”
In a statement provided to MacRumors, Oppo denied any wrongdoing. “We have found no evidence establishing any connection between these allegations and the employee’s conduct during his employment at OPPO,” the company stated, emphasizing that they also “[respect] the trade secrets of all companies, including Apple.”
Apple Settles Lawsuit Over Expanding Watch Batteries
The lawsuit has been underway for yearsIf this leaves you with a sense of deja vu, there’s a reason for that. In an article for Engadget on the lawsuit, Jackson Chen pointed out that this is Apple’s second such lawsuit this summer. In June, Apple filed a lawsuit against Di Liu, a former employee who left Apple to take a job with Snap. In an article on the case for The Verge, Jess Weatherbed reported that Apple seeks financial damages and returned documents from Liu.
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