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Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

bloomberg.com

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Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#81

Post by Lazare »

> “Whereas Nreal purported to develop its Nreal Light product in under two years, Magic Leap developed its technology after extensive investment of time (multiple years), money (hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research and development) and human resources (hundreds of engineers),” according to the complaint.

I have no real opinion on the allegations, and if true they are serious but...

...I find it a bit hilarious that Magic Leap, a company that has been widely criticised for over promising, under delivering, having extremely basic tech which is itself quite close to the tech of competitors, and which is well known for spending an eye watering amount of money and time in order to obtain very little results would offer this as a supporting argument.

Just because Magic Leap spent two billion and 7 years doesn't mean a competent engineering team couldn't do it a lot faster with a lot less money. :) (Especially with entirely legitimate access to Magic Leaps hardware, and with the benefit of years more published research across the industry.) I hope Magic Leap has some better arguments than they managed to get published in Bloomberg, because what's in the article is just hand wavy nonsense.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#82

Post by [deleted] »

elamje wrote: post #51
majia wrote: post #49

Lessons learned from Magic Leap: don’t sign a non-compete agreement with your employee; you have to pay and it’s legally not enforceable in California. Ask your employee to sign a board confidentiality agreement and sue him if he works for a competitor. Also, I wonder if people would think differently if this case is about a Facebook employee left to work on a social media App like google+.

Possibly, but copying a web app is substantially simpler than copying AR tech. Considering magic leap was stealth with hundreds of millions in R&D, I would put it in a different category than making a similar web app.

[deleted]

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#83

Post by Lazare »

cabotmoose wrote: post #47
ETHisso2017 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xenophobia and disdain for due process all wrapped in less than 100 words. Someone get this guy a medal for brevity.

Xenophobia accusations aside, especially when the chief engineer used to work for the American company I think this certainly shifts the burden of proof to Nreal to prove they did not steal Magic Leap's technology after releasing a very similar product

That's certainly not true as a matter of law, and I don't think it's true in terms of any sort of moral or court of public opinion either.

Magic Leap, as with any accuser, faces the burden of proof, full stop. And offhand that looks like a pretty high barrier, given that the Nreal product is so different than Magic Leap's.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#84

Post by Lazare »

dmix wrote: post #39
usaphp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A is not the same. It looks similar but the cut on the bottom has different angle. Also looking at it closer, even E is not the same. In magic leap the top cutout is bigger than bottom one, in nreal they have the same, equal size.

Oh come on, that logo type is extremely derivative of the Magic Leap one. n/m e, and a were essentially copied. They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen. I'm very pro-theft in design as a learning and inspiration tool but it's extremely stupid when you both copy the logo font while also doing similar IP, when the cofounder worked there previously. It makes it look like they were baiting Magic Leap to complain.…

> They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen.

A font would be covered under copyright so....I mean....legally, they do have to be exact copies, yes. And this one is not, so the entire discussion of the font seem legally irrelevant.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#85

Post by scotty79 »

iabacu wrote: post #25
dirtyid wrote: post #7

Nreal optical hardware is closer to ODGs and very different to Magic Leap. Magic Leap acquired ODG patent portfolio recently (after effectively killing them via some backstabby acquisition shenanigans) and is now opportunistically patent trolling Nreal and the increasing amount of Chinese competition (Nreal has much better visual quality at a much lower price) using post rationalized accusations given current US-Chin…

> and is now opportunistically patent trolling Nreal Are you making this up? I don't see any patent claim being mentioned in the article.

I think he didn't mean that literally.

"Patent trolling" as in extorting someone who successfully implemented some idea just because I have some claim to comming up with vaguely similar idea first.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#86

Post by dmix »

Lazare wrote: post #84
dmix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, that logo type is extremely derivative of the Magic Leap one. n/m e, and a were essentially copied. They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen. I'm very pro-theft in design as a learning and inspiration tool but it's extremely stupid when you both copy the logo font while also doing similar IP, when the cofounder worked there previously. It makes it look like they were baiting Magic Leap to complain.…

> They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen. A font would be covered under copyright so....I mean....legally, they do have to be exact copies, yes. And this one is not, so the entire discussion of the font seem legally irrelevant.

But it's certainly not helping. It amplifies the derivative nature of the whole operation, right from the branding level to the product, regardless of exact legal implications.

This stuff matters in personal legacy, industry/media respect, and ultimately branding too. Unless they were purposefully going for the Chinese knock-off look.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#88

Post by khuey »

dmix wrote: post #18
phonon wrote: post #3

Read the complaint here https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15787938/1/magic-leap-i...

Summary of the evidence presented in the complaint: 1) Using the same proprietary font in their logo was a really dumb idea: > https://i.imgur.com/7pYZ8bp.png 2) Alleges he engaged in internal meetings "outside the scope of his work at Magic Leap" in order to gain useful information, while simultaneously neglecting his duties at work as he planned to start his own company in China. Before launching a product that loo…

The meat of the complaint IMO is paragraph 22.

> The resulting product, as demonstrated at CES and on publicly available videos, bears a striking similarity to the Confidential Designs that Magic Leap had under development before and during the time that Mr. Xu worked at Magic Leap, but which were not ultimately commercialized or publicly released.

Re: Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China

#89

Post by thrwaway1906 »

For those of us who studied the history of racism, sometimes racism can be "rational" but is still wrong.

For example, you may have a small corner shop and have a real problem with your locally hired employees stealing from the till. As a business owner, occassionally you "could" solve this problem by throwing away all resumes and people asking for a job that you get in your inner city, putting an ad up in a suburb and only hiring from there.

But if the suburb is 95% white whereas your local market is 80% black, this might just be a form of racism.

It is tough. You go out of business if your hires steal from the till. It seems so easy to exclude the people who steal (by hiring from a suburb). But it's still wrong.

I feel like subtle racism against people who will take pictures of everything in your lab, even stuff they're not supposed to have access to, and stealing your designs and literally sending them to your competitor to undercut you with and ruin your business, is the same thing.

You could go out of business if you can't compete with the people stealing your designs. The fix seems "so simple".

Still, the fix is wrong and racist. It is wrong to change your hiring policies if it has a racist effect, just as it is wrong to hire only from the suburbs if it has a racist effect. Even if it will protect and save your business.

Subtle racism has no place in hiring decisions.

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