- General
- June 18, 2019
- 5 minutes read
Magic Leap Accuses Nreal Founder Of Theft
Nreal founder and CEO Chi Xu image: Nreal You may be familiar with Nreal, if not, it’s a Chinese maker…
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| Nreal founder and CEO Chi Xu
image: Nreal
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You may be familiar with Nreal, if not, it’s a Chinese maker of augmented reality glasses founded by an ex-Magic Leap engineer. The company recently hit the news, having debuted a consumer version of its AR glasses. Now it’s apparently doing the same, but in a bleak way. Magic Leap is accusing Nreal’s founder, Chi Xu, of stealing its AR secrets to develop a headset for China that’s similar to Magic Leap’s own designs.
Florida-based Magic Leap filed a lawsuit on Monday, alleging Xu — a former Magic Leap engineer who left in 2016 — exploited confidential information to “quickly develop a prototype of lightweight, ergonomically designed, mixed reality glasses for use with smart phones and other devices that are strikingly similar” to Magic Leap’s designs.
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| A gaming depiction on Magic Leap’s AR headset
image: Magic Leap
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Magic Leap alleges Xu plotted during a 13 month stint at the company to launch his own competing company in China and “neglected his work duties” to gather proprietary information. Xu is accused of fraud, breach of contract and unfair competition.
“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),” Magic Leap said in its complaint.
Nreal is backed by the likes of iQIYI, Shunwei Capital, China Growth Capital, Siasun and APlus, with $31 million in total funding. Magic Leap on the other hand is backed by more than $2 billion in funding. The Florida-based company, in April, raised $280 million from Japanese mobile operator Docomo.
