Google Sues Ex-Engineer For Revealing Secrets About Its Pixel Processors
The American company has filed a lawsuit against former Google engineer Harshit Roy in a federal court in Texas, alleging that he revealed trade secrets related to the design of the Google Tensor family of chips, which give life to Google's Pixel series of smartphones and tablets.
The accused had shared confidential information about the said processors via social media, even mentioning Google's competitors and making threatening statements towards the company.
Google finds the former employee's behavior intolerable, and has filed the lawsuit, seeking a court order to prevent Roy from continuing to disclose confidential information, as well as damages for publishing this information, which would cause "irreparable harm" to the company, by allowing competitors to replicate or improve its products.
Harshit Roy worked at Google from Bengaluru, India, from June 2020 until his resignation in February this year. During his time at the company, he was part of the team responsible for designing and developing the new Google Tensor processor family, intended for use in Pixel devices.
Due to the nature of his work, Harshit Roy had access to confidential information, and was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting him from publishing any kind of information collected in the course of his work.
But Roy decided to take photos of classified documents, and in August 2024, after moving to Texas to study for a doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin, he began posting these photos on his personal social media pages on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn. The posts included confidential information about products, including the cover of a secret Google presentation. He also made threatening statements.
It is important to note that prior to these social media posts, Google had already discovered in December 2023 that Roy had been in possession of confidential information related to Pixel devices. At that time, Roy agreed to delete all photos from his devices and provided Google with proof of the deletion. Google believed that Roy had stopped stealing confidential information, but the posts from August 2024 proved otherwise.
After learning the facts, Google tried to contact him and send him a letter in November of this year, but the engineer did not respond and continued his practice of publishing confidential information.
As of today, Roig has already been served with a formal notice of the lawsuit, and he will have a specific period of time to respond. If the case is not resolved out of court, both sides will go to trial where Roig’s liability will be determined. Google is seeking a wide range of remedies in its lawsuit against Roig, including injunctive relief, damages, and payment of its legal costs. The outcome of the case will depend on the evidence presented and the legal arguments of both parties.