Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft

Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, accusing the ChatGPT maker of orchestrating a systematic campaign to steal confidential hardware designs and manufacturing processes as it builds its own consumer devices.

The suit, which is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, includes among its named defendants a former senior electrical engineer, Chang Liu, and a former design vice president for the iPhone and Apple Watch, Tang Yew Tan.

According to Apple's allegations, Liu retained possession of an Apple laptop after leaving, took advantage of a security vulnerability to access the company’s internal network, and copied multiple secret hardware files from the company.

Tan, who currently serves as the Chief Hardware Officer for OpenAI, allegedly sent himself vendor data and company summaries before leaving the company and urged potential new hires who were still at Apple to bring hardware components to the interviews for demonstration purposes.

Apple stated that there were more than 400 former employees working for OpenAI, saying that while it was unsurprising that such employees have trade secrets of the company, it does not give any right to use those trade secrets to OpenAI.

OpenAI acquired hardware maker LoveFrom, founded by the former head of Apple’s design department, Jony Ive, in a deal valued somewhere around $6.4 – $6.5 billion in the previous year.

This lawsuit follows shortly after OpenAI succeeded in repelling another legal battle by Elon Musk’s xAI, putting yet another notch on the ever-growing list of court cases as the AI hardware war heats up.