The Zhitong Finance App learned that the Apple (AAPL.US) lawsuit against OpenAI for stealing trade secrets will begin a key hearing in court for the first time. Wednesday's hearing will address two key issues: first, Apple requested a court order requiring OpenAI to immediately stop using the trade secrets it allegedly stole; second, OpenAI made another request, hoping that the court would completely dismiss Apple's lawsuit.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila (Edward Davila) of the San Jose Federal District Court in California will hear the two sides debate over Apple's application for a preliminary injunction. The ban will require OpenAI to stop using any confidential information it has obtained from Apple and immediately stop actions related to obtaining other private information.
As part of the application, Apple argued that OpenAI was using job interviews with its current and former employees to obtain proprietary information. According to Apple, OpenAI executives have instructed candidates to bring prototype products and other “design results” to participate in the “presentation and explanation” session. If the court approves the order, the order will remain in effect as long as Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI continues to be heard.
Davila ruled on Tuesday that Apple can quickly access OpenAI's recruitment-related materials. Specifically, the court allowed them to review documents relating to “OpenAI contacted Apple employees before the interview” — this group of candidates was targeting positions in OpenAI's consumer hardware and robotics department, just before the rumored release of OpenAI's first hardware device. Relevant documentation may include interview checklists, guidelines, scripts, technical demonstrations, and records that confirm “Apple technology or components mentioned in the interview.”
Davila asked OpenAI to hand over the compiled materials within 5 days, with the remaining 14 days relating to this application; at the same time, she approved Apple to obtain private chat records of people involved in the case on LINE, involving OpenAI employees Chang Liu and Alyssa Peng, and initiating out-of-court evidence collection against the two and Tang Yew Tan (all three from Apple).
However, Davila rejected Apple's application to quickly retrieve OpenAI research and development data in specific fields, such as content related to metal surface treatment and power management. The judge also denied several more extensive requests for disclosure of evidence from Apple, including retrieving OpenAI hardware research data and information on the results produced by former Apple employees after joining OpenAI. This rejection is not final; the judge said Apple could narrow down the scope of the application and resubmit the application.
Meanwhile, Davila will also hear another motion filed by OpenAI to completely dismiss Apple's lawsuit. OpenAI argues that Apple has failed to specify any specific trade secrets that have been stolen, and that its lawsuit only involves a broad category of information relating to hardware development. OpenAI stated in court documents that the lawsuit actually revealed flaws in Apple's own security measures and human resources processes, not any attempt by OpenAI to steal trade secrets.
According to OpenAI, Apple has encouraged employees to use personal iCloud accounts to handle work matters. The company added that due to an authentication error, Chang Liu, a former iPhone engineer who joined OpenAI in January this year and was included in the lawsuit, still has relevant access rights after leaving Apple.
Attorney OpenAI said that after Liu left his job, Apple employees continued to access data in his personal iCloud account and asked him to search for documents and answer technical questions. In August of this year, OpenAI published a copy of a private message between Liu and other employees on its website, showing that even after Chang Liu left Apple, Apple employees continued to contact him about technical issues in previous projects.
OpenAI believes that these exchanges, along with Apple's omissions in the employee separation process, caused Chang Liu to still be able to access company documents even after leaving his job, have jointly refuted Apple's claims about how Chang Liu obtained relevant information.
Apple, on the other hand, argued that the information in Chang Liu's personal iCloud account was “completely unrelated” to his core allegation. Apple's core allegation is that Chang Liu later used an authentication vulnerability to access Apple's network storage system and download confidential files.
Former partners go to court
In July of this year, Apple filed a lawsuit in the US Federal Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI of deliberately instigating Apple employees to leak information, components, drawings, and other materials relating to unreleased products, and is using this information to “advance OpenAI's efforts to enter the consumer hardware market.”
The lawsuit also named Tang Tan, the chief hardware officer of OpenAI — a former vice president of product design at Apple, who led the development of core hardware products such as the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, and named Chang Liu, a former iPhone hardware engineer. According to the lawsuit information, after leaving his job, Chang Liu discovered that he was also able to access Apple's cloud file storage because he kept a laptop issued by Apple when he left his job. However, there was a flaw in Apple's system that allowed him to continue reading internal files after leaving his job. Chang Liu then joined OpenAI in January of this year. Over the next few weeks, he “secretly accessed and downloaded dozens of Apple's confidential hardware documents, including extensive unpublished product information, engineering presentations, technical specifications, and proprietary project data.”
Apple also revealed an even more serious allegation: OpenAI is accused of systematically instructing former employees how to circumvent the company's security procedures, and these actions are directly directed by OpenAI's senior leadership. Apple also directly wrote in the lawsuit: OpenAI's emerging hardware business is now being built on the most unstable foundation, and its core has been destroyed by illegally stolen trade secrets. Apple also mentioned that currently more than 400 former Apple employees work at OpenAI.
OpenAI, on the other hand, vehemently denied the allegations. According to the company, the purpose of Apple's lawsuit is to restrict employees from switching jobs to competitors and is trying to describe “ordinary job interviews as misappropriation of trade secrets.” OpenAI stated in a court filing in October: “OpenAI is developing a range of new devices designed specifically for the AI era. OpenAI neither needs nor wants to obtain Apple's trade secrets.”
Two years ago, Apple and OpenAI were examples of strong alliances in the field of AI. The two sides finalized the cooperation in 2024. Apple plans to build ChatGPT into the iPhone to make up for the shortcomings of the lack of intelligence of native Siri; OpenAI relies on Apple's huge terminal ecosystem to quickly acquire a large number of users and broaden commercial channels. At the time, outsiders generally believed that the two would achieve a win-win situation.
At the Apple Global Developers Conference (WWDC) at the time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was Apple's guest. Apple's software director Craig Federidge also publicly praised OpenAI as a “pioneer and market leader” in the AI field.
The cooperative honeymoon period did not last long, and differences of interest and conflict on the racetrack gradually surfaced. OpenAI is not willing to just be a supporting tool for Apple phones; its ambition is to directly target the consumer hardware market. The company has heavily recruited legendary Apple designer Jony Ive to lead a new hardware project. The industry generally predicts that this self-developed AI hardware will face competition from Apple phones and smart devices, directly shaking the basic hardware that Apple depends on to survive. Even though OpenAI streamlined its business and focused on the ChatGPT core model during the year, R&D investment in self-developed hardware was uninterrupted, and the competitive relationship with Apple became more and more acute.
Earlier this year, there were reports that OpenAI had even considered taking legal action against Apple and issuing a notice of breach of contract because it was dissatisfied with the benefits of the cooperation. At the same time, Apple itself is also speeding up the development of AI devices, and is developing various devices such as smart glasses, pendants, and AirPods equipped with cameras to adapt to the AI era.
Guo Mingyi, an analyst at Tianfeng International Securities, previously analyzed that the device being developed by OpenAI may be a smartphone that relies on AI agents rather than traditional applications. If the judgment in this direction is true, the competition between OpenAI and Apple is not an AI company trying to grab market share from traditional technology companies, but is directly targeting the iPhone's core logic.
PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said that the relationship between the two companies is gradually deteriorating, and even if the allegations made by Apple cannot be confirmed in the end, OpenAI's hardware plans may still be affected. He explained, “Apple is watching OpenAI go from partner to competitor, while OpenAI is trying to reduce dependence on iPhones and establish direct connections with consumers. Even if the allegations in the lawsuit are not proven, OpenAI's hardware products are likely to be dragged down, and the already fragile partnership between the two sides may further weaken.”