OpenAI calls Apple trade secrets lawsuit personal as injunction fight begins
OpenAI denied Apple’s allegations and published messages disputing its account as Apple seeks an injunction and faster discovery.
By Dominic Okoye · Staff Writer
· 3 min read
OpenAI has called Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit “careless, aggressive and oddly personal,” denying that it possesses or wants Apple confidential information. The OpenAI Apple trade secrets lawsuit has also reached a more consequential procedural stage: Apple has asked a federal judge to restrict OpenAI and two former Apple employees from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing the information at issue while the case proceeds.
Apple filed the case in July in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against OpenAI, its io Products unit, and former Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan. Apple alleges that trade secrets were misappropriated to aid OpenAI’s consumer-hardware effort. The claims have not been adjudicated, and OpenAI disputes them.
In an August 3 post, OpenAI challenged Apple’s account of contacts between the companies before the lawsuit. It said Apple’s outside counsel initially emailed the wrong person after mixing up two Asian surnames, and said a purported conversation with OpenAI’s general counsel did not happen. OpenAI also said Apple did not raise the specific allegations now in the complaint during that earlier exchange and instead said it was resolving the issues.
Those are OpenAI’s assertions, not court findings. The company published correspondence it says supports its version of events.
What does Apple seek in its trade secrets case against OpenAI?
Apple’s August 3 request seeks a preliminary injunction, a court order intended to govern conduct while litigation continues. According to Reuters, Apple wants the court to bar OpenAI, Liu and Tan from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing Apple’s alleged confidential information.
Apple also asked for expedited discovery, including early document production and depositions. Its request names Liu and Tan, OpenAI employee Yu-Ting Peng, an unnamed OpenAI employee who previously worked at Apple, and corporate representatives of OpenAI and io Products, Reuters reported. Apple has said it would be irreparably harmed without an injunction.
No damages figure, settlement proposal or court disposition of Apple’s requests was disclosed in the material available.
OpenAI disputes allegations involving Liu and Tan
Apple alleges Liu, formerly a senior system electrical engineer, accessed its trade secrets after leaving the company. OpenAI says Apple employees contacted Liu after his departure to ask for help locating files and information. It published redacted messages that it presents as evidence for that account, but the records do not resolve the factual dispute between the parties.
Apple separately alleges that Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former Apple product-design executive, sought proprietary information during interviews with Apple employees. OpenAI said Tan instructed his team not to seek or use confidential information from other companies.
The dispute follows a previous Apple-OpenAI partnership that integrated OpenAI technology into Apple products. It now sits alongside their overlapping interests in consumer hardware: Apple says its claims concern information tied to unreleased technologies, processes and products, while OpenAI has been building a hardware operation that includes former Apple personnel.
For the case, hiring former employees is not itself the central legal question. Legal experts told the Daily Journal that a trade-secrets plaintiff generally must show that the material qualifies for protection, that it took reasonable measures to protect it, and that it was improperly acquired. Discovery is likely to focus on whether protected information was retained, disclosed or used, rather than on hiring alone.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
