Apple will settle its trade secret lawsuit with Rivos, shows filing

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Apple sued the chip startup Rivos back in 2022, accusing them of stealing AirDrop and Time Machine secrets.

Now, after almost two years of elaborate battle, a new filing from Friday reveals that both companies informed the judge that they are planning to finalize a settlement out of the court by March 15.

The filing was first spotted by Bloomberg on Friday, revealing both companies are finally ready to settle their lawsuit and are moving towards an agreement.

Apple is ready to settle its beef with Rivos

In May 2022, Apple sued the chip startup Rivos and accused them of poaching engineers with access to the company’s secret information. 

According to the Cupertino firm’s lawsuit, its former employees store the company’s proprietary information at the request of Rivos, which is allegedly a part of their recruiting process. The complaint stated the following, 

Starting in June 2021, Rivos began a coordinated campaign to target Apple employees with access to Apple’s proprietary and trade secret information about Apple’s SoC designs.

Apparently, Apple has lost gigabytes worth of sensitive System-on-a-Chip specifications and design files to Rivos. 

However, it wasn’t one-sided. Rivos even fired back with its own lawsuit in September of 2023, accusing the company of using underhanded tactics to intimidate its engineers into leaving. 

According to Bloomberg’s report, both companies have decided to settle the matter. The outlet states, 

The agreement provides for remediation of Apple confidential information based on a forensic examination of Rivos systems and other activities. The parties currently are working through that process,” according to the filing in federal court in San Jose, California. “The parties currently are working through that process.

It seems quite a different approach for the iPhone maker, probably due to the recent Apple Watch escapade. It’s likely the company didn’t want to risk another big lawsuit going against it.

Apple just wants Rivos to get rid of all the unauthorized data to keep its proprietary data confidential.

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