Please note, IANAL, YMMV, etc, etc. If you (or your spuose, family member, friend, gym buddy, whatever) work or worked for the competitor, it could be insider

Please note, IANAL, YMMV, etc, etc. If you (or your spuose, family member, friend, gym buddy, whatever) work or worked for the competitor, it could be insider knowledge. I think that's not your problem. If your product could be construed as being an attempt to lower the stock price of your competitor, and not a good faith attempt to compete, then I think you'd be committing fraud. Consider ... your product launches, your competitor's stock falls, you make money on your short bets, your product then fails. Can you prove in court that your product's failure wasn't just an attempt to make money off your shorts? Again, I'm not lawyer: talk to a real one.