Gerard Williams III, a former top chip engineer at Apple has been hit with a breach-of-contract lawsuit that the Cupertino firm filed against him after he left the company and launched his own processor firm, Nuvia.
Attorneys for a former Apple Inc executive on Tuesday will try to convince a skeptical judge of a core tenet of tech startup culture – that employees can plan a competing venture while still in a job.
Apple’s lawsuit against a former chip executive-turned-rival will have implications for employees all over California who are considering striking out on their own and creating the startups that drive tech business and culture.
Apple filed the lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court against Gerard Williams III, who left the company last year after more than nine years as chief architect for the custom processors that power iPhones and iPads to start Nuvia Inc, which is designing chips for servers…
Apple sued Williams in August, alleging that he breached an intellectual property agreement and a duty of loyalty to the company by planning his new startup while on company time at Apple, spending hours on the phone with colleagues who eventually joined the venture.
MacDailyNews Take: We can’t imagine that in any state, even California, it’s legal to use your time at a company to plan another. It’s certainly not morally right, even if ultimately deemed legal. Or perhaps Williams spent hours on the phone at Apple with colleagues who eventually joined Nuvia talking only about Apple processors, not the forthcoming Nuvia venture?