Its unlikely, but not impossible and when you’re dealing with preproduction prototypes you are holding someone elses valuable proprietary information, which in the case of this waterblock is unlikely to be something thats worth copying as its a high cost low margin niche product. But someone could.
Its not like it was just expensive or just someone elses property. It was someone elses one of a kind proprietary design prototype, they knew this and they STILL couldnt show the proper care and responsibility. Thats why this admittedly unlikely edge case is a big deal.