Six current and former Fitbit employees have been hit with a federal indictment over the theft of trade secrets from one-time rival, Jawbone.
All had worked for Jawbone for at least a year between 2011 and 2015, before jumping ship and getting hired by the company chief competitor.
The allegations have been floating around for a while.
Look, we even made a graphic for the stream of allegations being lobbed back and forth between the wearable makers.
Shortly before Fitbit 2015 IPO, Jawbone filed a suit alleging that Fitbit had attempted to recruit nearly a third of its employees.
The suit was seemingly resolved late last year, however, through a global settlement between both parties.
&In a trade secret misappropriation case brought by Jawbone in the International Trade Commission in 2016 that involved these same individuals,& Fitbit said in a statement given to TechCrunch this morning, &a federal administrative law judge during a nine-day trial on the merits found that no Jawbone trade secrets were misappropriated or used in any Fitbit product, feature or technology.&Jawbone, of course, has since fallen on tough times.
The company was liquidated roughly this time last year, as CEO Hosain Rahman set out to create a related health startup.
As far as the DOJ was concerned, however, the story isn&t finished just yet.
&Intellectual property is the heart of innovation and economic development in Silicon Valley,& Acting U.S.
Attorney Alex Tse told MarketWatch &The theft of trade secrets violates federal law, stifles innovation, and injures the rightful owners of that intellectual property.&