OpenAI says Apple's trade secrets lawsuit is "aggressive and oddly personal"
Ars Technica Jamie John, Financial Times ● Covered by 7 sources
OpenAI fired back at Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit, calling it aggressive and oddly personal. It says Apple went quiet for months before suing.
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Jamie John, Financial Times — read the original for the full story.
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OpenAI didn't hold back in its response to Apple's trade secrets lawsuit, filed Monday, which seeks a preliminary injunction against the company and two of its own former employees. The startup's rebuttal is blunt: Apple, it says, raised none of these specific allegations when the two sides last spoke, and instead told OpenAI it was "resolving any issues." Then, according to OpenAI, silence. Five months of it. Until the lawsuit landed.
At the center of Apple's complaint is Chang Liu, a former Apple employee who worked on what the company describes as some of its most sensitive product development programs before leaving in January. Apple claims Liu accessed its trade secrets after his departure. OpenAI tells a different story, saying it was Apple's own employees who reached out to Liu and asked for his help locating that information — a detail OpenAI says Apple "only now admits."
Apple also named Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer, accusing him of fishing for proprietary information while interviewing Apple staff. OpenAI defended Tan directly, writing that he has always told the team not to want or use confidential information from other companies.
Beyond the injunction request, Apple filed a separate motion asking the court to fast-track discovery and compel several OpenAI employees, including Liu and Tan, to sit for depositions. OpenAI called the injunction bid both based on false information and unnecessary, insisting flatly that it doesn't have and doesn't want any of Apple's trade secrets.
The sharpest line in OpenAI's statement wasn't really about the law at all. It leaned into reputation, calling Apple one of the greatest companies of all time, known for obsessing over the smallest details — before adding that this lawsuit, in its telling careless, aggressive, and oddly personal, doesn't live up to that standard. Apple had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Whatever actually happened between these two, OpenAI's five-month-silence detail is the kind of thing that tends to matter a lot once lawyers get involved, and Apple would do well to explain that gap rather than let it sit there looking bad. Calling out a rival's reputation for precision while accusing it of a sloppy lawsuit is a pointed move, and it's the kind of PR jab that usually means the legal footing is shakier than the press release wants you to believe.”}}
Read more about this at: Ars Technica