Apple accuses former engineer of taking Vision Pro secrets to Snap

He didn't cover his tracks very well, the iGiant claims in a court filing

An ex-Apple employee who allegedly thought he was clever enough to sneak out the back door to a job at Snap loaded up with Cupertino's secrets has instead found himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit. 

Apple sued [PDF] former Vision Pro product design engineer Di Liu in Santa Clara County Superior Court in late June, accusing him of taking confidential files related to his work on Apple's augmented reality headset for the benefit of his new employer Snap. Notably, since late 2024, the Spectacles maker has pivoted from making Snapchat-connected camera glasses to developing an AR product similar to Apple Vision Pro. 

Liu resigned from Apple on October 30, 2024, telling colleagues that "he wanted to spend more time with his family and take care of his health," according to the complaint. Cupertino granted him a standard two-week departure period, per court documents, which included maintaining access to his company-issued laptop. Unfortunately for Liu, he apparently didn't bother covering his tracks during that period.

"A review of Mr. Liu's Apple-issued work laptop showed that he was not honest about his stated reason for leaving Apple," the iMaker's lawyers alleged. 

Liu secretly received a job offer from Snap on October 18, 2024, a role the complaint describes as "substantially similar" to his Apple position, meaning Liu waited nearly two weeks to resign from Apple, per the lawsuit.

"Even then, he did not disclose he was leaving for Snap," the suit said. "Apple would not have allowed Mr. Liu continued access had he told the truth." 

Liu allegedly copied "more than a dozen folders containing thousands of files" from Apple's filesystem to a personal cloud storage account, dropping the stolen bits in a pair of nested folders with the amazingly nondescript names "Personal" and "Knowledge." 

Apple said that data Liu copied includes "filenames containing confidential Apple product code names" and files "marked as Apple confidential." Company research, product design, and supply chain management documents were among the content Liu is accused of stealing. 

The complaint also alleges that Liu deleted files to conceal his activities, a move that may hinder Apple's ability to determine the full scope of the data he exfiltrated.

"Mr. Liu additionally took actions to conceal his theft, including deceiving Apple about his job at Snap, and deleting files from his Apple-issued computer that might have let Apple determine what data Mr. Liu stole," the complaint noted.

Whatever he has, Apple wants it back. The company demands a jury trial on a single count of breach of contract under a confidentiality and intellectual property agreement Liu was bound to. It also asks the court to compel Liu to return all misappropriated data, award damages to be determined at trial, and reimburse Apple's costs and attorneys' fees.

Liu's alleged actions are hardly novel. Apple has claimed intellectual property theft in a number of high-profile incidents over the years: An autonomous car engineer admitted to stealing Apple Project Titan data, chip devs allegedly made off with designs, and even a former executive was accused of succumbing to the temptation to make off with secrets. With Apple's notorious reputation for secrecy, we imagine that even its IP table scraps are viewed as highly valuable information.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Liu could not be reached for comment. A spokesperson for Snap said, "We have reviewed the allegations in Apple’s Complaint and have no reason to believe they are related to this individual’s employment or conduct at Snap." ®