Google India sues ex-staff for leaking Pixel secrets

BENGALURU: Google and its Indian division initiated legal proceedings in the US against Harshit Roy, a former employee from their Bengaluru office, for disclosing confidential trade secrets. The disclosed information included detailed specifications of proprietary hardware and software for Pixel devices, which appeared on his social media accounts. Google engaged an external investigator to track down Roy to stop him from further dissemination of the misappropriated trade secrets that caused irreparable harm to Google.
In the previous year, Roy became involved with the development of next-generation system-on-chip technology for upcoming Pixel devices (SoC). As a prerequisite, Roy’s role required him to sign a confidential information and invention assignment agreement, considering his position would necessitate access to Google’s proprietary trade secrets.