Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, XETRA:APC) has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California accusing OpenAI (Unlisted:OPAI), its hardware subsidiary io Products, and two former Apple employees of misappropriating trade secrets related to the…
velopment of OpenAI’s planned consumer AI hardware. The complaint alleges OpenAI engaged in a coordinated effort to obtain Apple’s confidential information as it accelerated work on its hardware ambitions following its acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup io Products for approximately $6.5 billion
Apple named the OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC and io Products as defendants, along with OpenAI Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan and former Apple engineer Chang Liu. In the filing, Apple alleged that OpenAI and its employees took “illegal shortcuts” to develop AI hardware. “This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” the company said in the filing. The lawsuit claims Liu failed to return a company-issued MacBook after leaving Apple and exploited an authentication flaw to regain access to Apple’s internal cloud storage, where he allegedly downloaded thousands of confidential hardware documents.
Apple further alleged that Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple before joining OpenAI, instructed Apple employees interviewing with OpenAI to bring unreleased Apple components and prototypes to interviews for “show and tell” sessions. According to the complaint, OpenAI also sought access to Apple’s manufacturing know-how by misleading one of Apple’s industrial design partners into believing it had permission to replicate a proprietary metal-finishing process for OpenAI devices. Apple additionally alleged that OpenAI has recruited more than 400 former Apple employees for its hardware division. “Recently, significant evidence…