Apple sued OpenAI last month, alleging that former Apple employees who went to work for the ChatGPT maker stole trade secrets
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Apple $AAPL filed a motion Monday in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent two former employees and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing confidential information it claims as trade secrets, according to Reuters.
Alongside the injunction request, Apple filed a motion for expedited discovery, asking the court to compel the defendants to produce documents connected to their alleged handling of proprietary Apple information. The motion calls for depositions of Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan — both named defendants who left Apple for OpenAI — as well as OpenAI's Yu-Ting Peng and a second, unidentified OpenAI staffer who formerly worked at Apple. The filing further requests that corporate representatives from OpenAI and its hardware-focused subsidiary io Products — a co-defendant in the suit — sit for depositions.
"Apple will be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction," Apple said in the filing, adding that "OpenAI, its people, and partners should not be permitted to develop, release, and benefit from products using and developed with the benefit of Apple's trade secrets."
According to Forbes, Apple's filing noted it had sent OpenAI a letter after filing the underlying lawsuit outlining five conditions under which it would forgo seeking an injunction. OpenAI accepted three of the five conditions — committing to halt future access, cease any ongoing use, and retain relevant evidence — but drew the line at two others: permitting Apple's lawyers and outside forensic experts to examine OpenAI's devices, storage drives, and accounts, and allowing searches of OpenAI network locations where Apple data may have resided.
OpenAI pushed back against the injunction request in a blog post published Tuesday. "Apple's request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets," the company wrote. OpenAI described Apple as "one of the greatest companies" but called its lawsuit "careless, aggressive and oddly personal." The post included iMessage chats and email exchanges that OpenAI said support its position.
On the allegations against Tang Yew Tan, who serves as OpenAI's chief hardware officer and was previously a vice president at Apple overseeing product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch, OpenAI said he was clear with his team that "we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies." Regarding Chang Liu's alleged post-departure access to Apple files, OpenAI noted that Apple has since conceded that its own staff contacted him and requested his assistance in tracking down the materials in question.
Apple sued OpenAI last month, alleging that Chang Liu used a former colleague's laptop to pull dozens of confidential hardware files from Apple's internal network and that Tang Yew Tan forwarded supplier information to his personal email and coached incoming hires on bypassing Apple's offboarding procedures. The complaint also accused OpenAI of using misappropriated information to contact Apple's contract manufacturers. More than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit marked a sharp deterioration in a relationship that had once produced a 2024 agreement to integrate ChatGPT into Siri, a partnership that has since collapsed. Apple announced in June that a rebuilt version of Siri would run on Google $GOOGL Gemini instead.
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
