Fitness tracker producer Jawbone has sued Fitbit for acquiring confidential documents, shortly before its competitor holds its initial public offering of stock. Filed in a California State Court on Wednesday, Jawbone accuses Fitbit of “systematically plundering” confidential commercial information from it by hiring Jawbone employees, some of which acquired the secret data before departing to the competition.
“This case arises out of the clandestine efforts of Fitbit to steal talent, trade secrets, and intellectual property from its chief competitor,” writes Jawbone’s legal team.
It is alleged Fitbit contacted close to a third of Jawbone employees earlier this year, reports the New York Times, with those choosing to leave downloading information about current and future products to flash drives, before deleting system logs to cover their tracks
One example offered involved an employee hired by Fitbit on April 16, but waiting until April 22 to tell Jawbone about her departure. In that time, the employee is said to have held a meeting with Jawbone’s senior director of product management concerning future plans, using the opportunity to copy a “playbook” of the plans for later use. While the employee denied they acquired confidential information, she did later admit to having a copy of a “Market Trends and Opportunities” presentation. Another employee allegedly skipped the flash drive approach and sent the data to his personal email account.
“We are unaware of any confidential or proprietary information of Jawbone in our possession and we intend to vigorously defend against these allegations,” said Fitbit in a statement.
