Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI over disclosing sensitive information.
The high-profile relationship between Apple and OpenAI has experienced a profound breakdown after Apple officially filed a sweeping lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing OpenAI of a coordinated, institutional campaign to steal its hardware trade secrets.
The lawsuit centers on Apple’s allegation that OpenAI and two former Apple employees improperly obtained and used Apple’s confidential information to support OpenAI’s expansion into AI-powered consumer hardware.
While these allegations in a civil lawsuit have not been proven in court yet.
Apple claims the former employees took or retained confidential information, including product designs, manufacturing processes, and supply-chain details and that the information benefited OpenAI’s hardware development.
The iPhone company also alleges OpenAI systematically recruited Apple employees and exploited supplier relationships to obtain proprietary information.
As reported by Reuters, tensions between the two tech companies have strained their relationship, as the race to develop AI products has intensified competition for talent and proprietary technology.
The lawsuit comes as OpenAI expands beyond software into AI hardware, following its acquisition of “io Products” and growing ambitions to build consumer devices.
The case highlights increasing competition between the two companies, despite their previous partnership that integrated ChatGPT into Apple’s ecosystem.
The two former employees named in the lawsuit are Chang Liu, a former senior system electrical engineer, and former vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch Tang Yew Tan.
Apple alleged that Liu failed to return a company-issued work laptop and later used an authentication bug to access Apple’s internal network, downloading “dozens of Apple’s confidential hardware-related files.”
Tan worked on the iPhone for most of his 24-year tenure at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page.
The iPhone maker also claimed that OpenAI’s hardware chief Tan had been “methodically using Apple’s confidential information to benefit OpenAI” by emailing himself information about Apple suppliers and internal industry summaries before his departure.
Despite the serious allegations both accused involved in the case have not responded to the matter yet.
Apple is seeking damages and court orders to prevent the alleged use of its trade secrets while the court will determine whether Apple’s claims are supported by evidence or not.
