Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and two former employees, alleging that the artificial intelligence company used stolen trade secrets in its consumer hardware development.
Lawsuit Details
The complaint, lodged on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, names Chang Liu, a former senior system electrical engineer at Apple, and Tang Yew Tan, an ex-executive involved in iPhone and Apple Watch design. OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, and io Products are also listed as defendants.
Apple claims that Liu, who departed the company in January after an eight-year tenure, failed to return a company laptop and subsequently gained access to Apple’s internal systems through an authentication vulnerability.
“While employed by OpenAI, Mr. Liu also exploited a rare, previously unknown authentication bug to access Apple’s shared network folders,” Apple’s attorneys stated in the complaint. “Upon discovering that he had this unauthorized access to Apple’s systems, Mr. Liu did not report it, return his stolen Apple-issued work laptop, or delete the program that allowed the access.”
The tech giant alleges that Liu downloaded numerous confidential hardware files, including details on unreleased products, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data.
Allegations Against Former Executive
Apple also accuses Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before becoming OpenAI’s chief hardware officer, of leveraging confidential information from his time at Apple to benefit OpenAI.
The lawsuit asserts that Tan used internal Apple project names during OpenAI interviews and inquired about unreleased products. Apple further alleges that candidates were instructed to bring “actual parts” for “show and tell.”
Additionally, Apple claims that OpenAI’s recruitment process solicited “CAD/design artifacts,” prototypes, supplier information, and specifics about employees’ work on Apple hardware.
Representatives for Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Broader Context
This legal action follows OpenAI’s recent $6.4 billion acquisition of io Products, a hardware startup founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive. Ive is not named in the current complaint.
According to the filing, OpenAI’s hardware division has recruited over 400 former Apple employees. Apple states it approached OpenAI in February with concerns about confidential information being transferred to the company but received no response.
The lawsuit emerges amidst a separate trade secret dispute between OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. In September, xAI sued OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT maker recruited former employees to acquire confidential source code, training methodologies, and data center strategies. OpenAI denied these accusations, and a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in June, ruling that xAI failed to demonstrate that OpenAI encouraged a former employee to disclose confidential information.
The current lawsuit marks a significant shift from the earlier relationship between Apple and OpenAI. In 2024, Apple had integrated OpenAI’s technology to power Siri as part of its Apple Intelligence initiative. However, earlier this year, Apple opted to partner with Google’s Gemini to power its next generation of AI models, following delays that impacted its own rollout.
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