Apple's Apple Watch trade secret case against Oppo goes ahead after a judge refuses to dismiss itApple's Apple Watch trade secret case against Oppo goes ahead after a judge refuses to dismiss it

A federal judge in California has refused to dismiss Apple's lawsuit accusing a former Apple Watch engineer and the Chinese phone maker Oppo of taking the watch's health sensor secrets.

US District Judge Eumi K. Lee signed the six-page order on 30 September in Apple Inc. v. Shi, case 25-cv-07105 in the Northern District of California. Three motions were before her: one from Oppo, formally Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications, one from its US affiliate InnoPeak Technology, which joined Oppo's, and one from the engineer, Dr Chen Shi. All three are denied, and the order says she decided them on the papers without a hearing. Each defendant now has until 21 October 2026 to file a responsive pleading, its formal answer to Apple's complaint.

Apple filed the case in August 2025. The order sets out what Apple's amended complaint alleges, which the court has to assume is true at this stage. Apple says Dr Shi downloaded 63 documents from a protected Box folder late at night, three days before he left, and copied them to a USB drive the day before his departure. It says he set up dozens of one-on-one meetings with Apple Watch engineers about their work on optical, temperature and ECG sensors. And it says he later presented some of that information to what the complaint calls hundreds of Oppo and InnoPeak engineers.

The order also names a fourth defendant the early coverage left out: Dr Zijing Zeng, described as the head of Oppo's health division. Apple alleges he recruited Dr Shi, encouraged him to gather information before leaving, and advertised his talk inside Oppo as a chance to learn how Apple's sensors are developed. The defendants deny the allegations, and the judge notes that they contest them vigorously.

What did the judge decide?

• Dr Shi's breach of contract claim stands. Apple plausibly alleges he broke the confidentiality agreement he signed, and that Apple was harmed.
• His agreement is not void. Dr Shi argued it was drawn so broadly he could not work in health sensing at all, which California law forbids. The judge found it bars disclosure of confidential information, not working for Oppo.
• Apple has identified at least one trade secret specifically enough: sensor hardware and software, and the named files it says were downloaded.
• The claim against Dr Zeng survives. On Apple's account, he knew the information was being taken in breach of a duty of confidence.

AppleInsider, which reported the ruling on 1 October, attributes the argument about working in health sensing to Oppo. In the order it is Dr Shi's motion, and that is how we report it. AppleInsider also reports earlier disputes over Oppo's compliance with discovery and an Apple request in March for an order to preserve evidence. Those are not part of this ruling, and we have not checked them against the docket.

Our take

A motion to dismiss asks only whether the complaint, taken at its word, describes something the law can remedy. Losing one says nothing about whether the 63 documents were what Apple says or whether Oppo used them. It does mean the case moves on to the stage where the defendants answer and evidence is exchanged, and that is where trade secret cases are usually won, lost or settled. The docket already runs past 440 entries in thirteen months, which suggests neither side expects a quick end.

The most useful part of the order for anyone who has signed an employment contract in California is the line it draws. The state is famously hostile to non-compete agreements, and Dr Shi tried to fit Apple's confidentiality agreement into that category. The judge would not, because the agreement does not stop him working anywhere. It stops him taking things with him. That distinction is old, but it matters every time an engineer moves between rivals, and Apple, which hires from competitors constantly, benefits from it being stated plainly.

APPDOOK's reading is that the sensors are the point. Temperature, ECG and optical heart sensing are what Apple has spent years turning into health features with regulatory clearances behind them, and they are the hardest part of a smartwatch for a rival to copy from the outside. Oppo is barely known as a watch brand in the US, but it competes with Apple Watch in China. If Apple's allegations hold, the harm is not a copied feature this year but a shortcut through years of sensor research. If they do not, Apple will have spent a long time arguing that an engineer's ordinary job change was theft. Nothing in this order tells us which.