Attendees await a product announcement event beginning September 12, 2018 at Apple’s Cupertino, California headquarters.
Noah Berger | AFP | Getty images
Apple sued a former employee in federal court in California on Thursday, alleging that Simon Lancaster, who worked as a product design architect, passed on trade secrets to a member of the media and in return asked for favorable coverage of companies he was involved with.
In its lawsuit, Apple did not mention the media correspondent or the details Lancaster allegedly leaked.
The lawsuit highlights Apple’s approach to building products in complete secrecy. While all technology companies keep a close eye on intellectual property, Apple’s culture places a strong emphasis on it, and the company has developed a need-to-know system called “ disclosure ” where employees of a project often lack knowledge from other parts of the project to avoid leaks. .
According to the lawsuit, a reporter contacted Lancaster in 2018 and the two communicated the following year before Lancaster left Apple in November 2019. During that time, Lancaster provided the reporter with information about unreleased products, including internal documents, according to the lawsuit. . At one point, Lancaster told another contact that the reporter would report a company he was involved with if it brought in $ 1 million in funding.
In November 2019, Arris Composites announced that it had hired Lancaster.
Apple considers details of unreleased products to be important trade secrets because a core part of the company’s marketing is to create “surprise and joy” when new products are unveiled at closely choreographed launch events.
The lawsuit provides a glimpse into the nondisclosure terms in which Apple designers and engineers produce new products:
Some takeaways from the lawsuit:
- Apple product teams work in complete secrecy, often for years, and with significant personal burden.
- Secret Apple information is available to employees and contractors only after they sign a “strict” confidentiality agreement.
- Even within Apple, employees are limited in what they can learn through a system that requires them to be “revealed” about a project.
- Employees can only be “disclosed” for a secret project if a disclosed employee requests access and provides a business reason for the disclosure.
- Apple has an internal tool to manage disclosures company-wide.
- All employees of secret projects must undergo security training that reminds them that they cannot even tell their close relatives about the secrets they are working on.
- Any person in an Apple facility without a company badge must be accompanied by an Apple representative.
- Apple believes competitors will start working on their own products after reading reports on upcoming Apple products.
- Apple believes that leaks about upcoming products could reduce customer demand for what’s on the market right now and diminish the morale of the teams working on them.
“Tens of thousands of Apple employees work tirelessly every day on new products, services, and features, hoping to surprise our customers and enable them to change the world. Stealing ideas and confidential information undermines their efforts and hurts Apple and our customers. . ” Apple spokesman said in a statement. “We take this person’s willful theft of our trade secrets, violations of our ethics and policies very seriously, all for personal gain. We will do everything we can to protect the innovations we hold dear.”
Messages sent to Lancaster and a representative of Arris Composites asking for comment were not immediately returned.