OpenAI has asked a federal judge to dismiss Apple’s lawsuit accusing the company of stealing trade secrets, calling the allegations “meritless.” The filing defends two former Apple employees named in the suit and argues Apple has not identified what information qualifies as a protectable trade secret.
OpenAI’s legal arguments
OpenAI’s lawyers said the complaint mischaracterizes employee conduct and defended Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple as vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch before leaving to co‑found io Products with former Apple design chief Jony Ive; io merged with OpenAI in July 2025. OpenAI said Tan followed normal industry recruiting practices when interviewing Apple staff.
The filing also defended senior systems engineer Chang Liu, one of two former Apple employees named by Apple. Apple alleges Liu accessed confidential hardware files over several weeks after finding an authentication bug; OpenAI says Liu was helping a former Apple colleague locate information for their own work and published excerpts of text messages it says support that account. OpenAI’s lawyers wrote that “Apple should not be permitted to use a baseless and pretextual lawsuit.”
OpenAI’s motion argues Apple never properly identified which information counts as a protectable trade secret and says OpenAI is “building something entirely new and different from anything at Apple,” asserting it has no interest in Apple’s confidential material. The 31‑page filing also disputes how Apple constructed its case, saying Apple’s own security practices—including permitting staff to use personal iCloud accounts for work and later reviewing personal messages on company devices—are what left former employees with leftover system access rather than evidence of coordinated theft. The filing repeatedly frames the dispute as Apple trying to cover for its own struggles, with variations of the word “fail” appearing nearly 50 times.
OpenAI revisited an earlier dispute over how the parties first lost contact: Apple’s suit said OpenAI did not respond to outreach in February and that the sides raised the matter with OpenAI’s general counsel; OpenAI says neither statement is true and traces the breakdown to Apple’s outside counsel confusing two OpenAI employees with similar surnames and sending a message to the wrong person.
Apple seeks injunction and expands investigation
This motion follows Apple’s July lawsuit accusing OpenAI of running a scheme to extract confidential product information from job candidates and new hires. The companies had partnered for about two years to build ChatGPT integration into Siri, but Apple says the relationship soured as OpenAI moved into hardware, a shift Apple says was accelerated by OpenAI’s acquisition of Ive’s startup. Apple’s complaint says more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI.
Apple has asked the same judge for a preliminary injunction to bar OpenAI from using any alleged trade secrets while the case proceeds and for expedited discovery targeting Liu, Tan, OpenAI and its foundation, and io. Apple said its investigation identified 11 additional former employees who may be witnesses or otherwise involved beyond Liu, Tan and previously named OpenAI employee Yu‑Ting Peng. Apple alleges one former employee met with Liu and Peng before Peng’s OpenAI interview and discussed proprietary information about unannounced products, and that another took screenshots of confidential documents relating to an unannounced Apple product before their interview. Apple also said that after it filed the complaint, several former staffers now at OpenAI reached out about returning Apple‑issued devices they had retained.
OpenAI called Apple’s injunction request “based on false information and completely unnecessary” in a public blog post. OpenAI has a court‑ordered deadline of August 17 to formally respond to Apple’s preliminary injunction request, and the judge is scheduled to hear arguments on October 1.
