Not in the know, but it's going to be tricky to have those employees legally do work on Stages-like PMs given Giant doesn't (yet) own the Stages IP. I assume the employees themselves don't own any of the designs.

If Giant comes out with a crank arm PM that looks like Stages in a very short timeline, can't imagine there won't be lawyers getting busy.

Apparently Giant has sued Stages over not paying their bills. My sheer guess is that Giant plans to acquire the Stages IP in settling that lawsuit. And then start producing power meters. Where those power meters will go, I don't know. Maybe they think they can glue on Stages-like PMs on SRAM/Shimano cranks for cheaper than buying the SRAM/Shimano versions.