US Courts says Magic Leap has failed to state their claims against Nreal.
Back in June of 2019, Magic Leap filed a lawsuit against Nreal claiming the company stole technology and design that belonging to the Florida-based AR company. Magic Leap accused Nreal founder and former Magic Leap employee Chi Xu of “blatant copying” and taking a “free ride on Magic Leap’s business, image, and confidential information,” with the Nreal glasses.
In the papers filed last year, Magic Leap claimed that the Nreal glasses “bears a striking similarity to the confidential designs that Magic Leap had under development before and during the time that Mr.s Xu worked at Magic Leap, but which were not ultimately commercialized of publicly released.”
Xu was an employee of Magic Leap from 2015 to 2016 before leaving the company to start Nreal.
Part of the lawsuit referenced an interview with Nreal founder and CEO Chi Xu with MRTV, claiming that he acknowledged that acquisition of confidential information from Magic Leap and his use of the information to create the Nreal Light AR glasses.
In response to Magic Leap’s claims, Nreal fired back by filing a motion in December of 2019 to dismiss the lawsuit. Now, a year later, the United States District Court of Northern California has granted Nreal that motion, dismissing all of the claims Magic Leap filed against Nreal and the company’s co-founder, Chi Xu.
In an official statement from Nreal, company founder Chi Xu said, “We appreciate the court’s careful consideration of the issues at hand. From the beginning we’ve firmly stated that Magic Leap’s claims against Nreal are meritless. The fact that the court found that Magic Leap failed to state a single viable claim is telling.”
The last several months have been rocky for Magic Leap. The company predicted they would sell 100,000 AR headsets in the first year but unfortunately, they missed the mark big-time, selling only 6,000 headsets in the first 6 months. Then in April of 2020, the company announced that they would be laying off 1,000 employees, which was then followed up with the announcement that their CEO Rony Abovitz would be stepping down, calling it a “natural step”.
This latest announcement seems to be another bump in the road for the company, despite having recently received a $350 million lifeline.
Unfortunately for Magic Leap, the Court ruled that their complaint against Nreal failed to state claims on which relief could be granted.
For Xu, he and his company are extremely grateful for the support that they received from their investors, developers, partners, and stakeholders during the Magic Leap lawsuit. “We will be continuing to move forward on delivering our vision of consumer-grade mixed reality technology to the masses with Nreal Light,” said Xu.
Image Credit: Magic Leap, Nreal
