Jawbone sues Fitbit, accusing it of “systematically plundering” confidential info by poaching employees who improperly downloaded materials before leaving
Jawbone Sues Fitbit Over Data ‘Plundering’ by Ex-Employees — San Francisco — Close to what should be one of the biggest events …
Context & Ripple Effects
This May 2015 trade-secrets suit opened what became a multi-front war between Jawbone and Fitbit. Within weeks Jawbone escalated with a patent-infringement suit, then sought an ITC order blocking Fitbit tracker imports into the US — three legal actions in roughly two months from a hardware rival losing the consumer market.
The arc runs long: Fitbit filed its own countersuit calling Jawbone's patent case frivolous, an ITC trade judge later cleared Fitbit of stealing Jawbone's trade secrets in 2016, yet by June 2018 six current and former Fitbit employees faced federal charges for possession of stolen Jawbone trade secrets — after Jawbone itself had gone bankrupt.
First-order effects
- Fitbit now faces litigation on the employee-poaching front at the same time Jawbone is attacking through patents and the ITC, forcing the fast-growing wearable maker to defend both its product pipeline and its hiring practices.
Second-order effects
- The dispute raises the cost of talent moves between wearables rivals: exit interviews and device checks become standard as competitors weigh whether poached engineers are worth the legal exposure.
Third-order effects
- The pattern that ends with criminal indictments against employees years after the civil suits shows talent-to-IP disputes migrating from civil courts to prosecutors — making trade-secret hygiene at departure a personal liability, not just a corporate one.
The trend: Wearable-industry competition is increasingly fought through trade-secret and patent litigation aimed at employees themselves, with civil suits seeding criminal cases that outlast the companies that filed them.