OpenAI Says Apple’s Security Practices Undermine Trade Secrets Lawsuit

OpenAI argues that Apple’s own security practices undermine the company’s trade secrets lawsuit, saying Apple failed to protect information that it now claims former employees stole improperly.

The argument is laid out in OpenAI’s motion to dismiss Apple’s lawsuit, along with newly filed exhibits that offer a detailed look at the AI company’s legal defence. Rather than focusing primarily on whether former Apple employees working at OpenAI accessed confidential information, OpenAI is challenging whether that information qualifies as legally protected trade secrets in the first place.

Apple filed its lawsuit in July, accusing OpenAI of orchestrating a scheme to obtain confidential hardware information from former Apple engineers. This week, Apple asked the court to speed up discovery, saying its internal investigation suggests that additional former employees may have participated in or witnessed the alleged theft.

OpenAI points to Apple’s security practices

In its filing, OpenAI claims Apple allowed employees to use personal iCloud accounts for work and did not properly revoke access when employees left the company.

OpenAI also submitted text messages involving Chang Liu, a former Apple engineer and defendant in the case. According to the filing, an Apple manager remained logged into Liu’s personal iCloud account after he left Apple and used the account to transfer files. The manager later contacted Liu for help with technical questions involving Apple projects.

OpenAI argues that these practices demonstrate Apple did not consistently secure its own confidential information during employee departures. The company says Apple’s “inexplicable information-management practices” created access and security problems that the company is now characterising as theft.

The defence does not necessarily mean OpenAI is arguing that taking protected information would be acceptable simply because a system was accessible. Instead, the company is using Apple’s security procedures to challenge whether the information was actually treated as confidential trade-secret material and to suggest that some former employees may have been assisting their former colleagues rather than intentionally stealing information.

OpenAI challenges Apple’s description of the secrets

OpenAI also argues that Apple has failed to identify precisely which trade secrets were allegedly taken. According to the motion, Apple instead describes broad categories of its product-development process, including component manufacturing, product testing, vendor and supplier relationships, and distribution channels.

OpenAI says those general categories do not establish that the specific information involved qualifies as a legally protected trade secret.

The AI company further argues that it has little reason to use Apple’s confidential information because it is developing products that are fundamentally different from Apple’s existing hardware and software offerings.

“OpenAI has no use, need or desire for Apple’s trade secrets,” the company said in its motion, arguing that its interest in hiring engineers who leave Apple is separate from any alleged effort to obtain proprietary information.

Hiring dispute at the centre of the case

OpenAI’s filing also frames the lawsuit as part of a broader dispute over competition for engineering talent. The company says many former Apple employees have chosen to join OpenAI because of the opportunity to work on new AI products.

OpenAI argues that Apple may be using the lawsuit to slow a competitor’s progress in AI hardware rather than addressing its own challenges in attracting and retaining employees.

The company said Apple should not be allowed to use what it describes as a “baseless and pretextual lawsuit” to compensate for shortcomings in the market for talent or for what OpenAI characterises as failures to integrate AI into Apple’s products.

Apple’s request for expedited discovery could now put additional pressure on OpenAI and the former Apple employees named in the case. The dispute is likely to turn on what information was accessed, how it was handled after employees departed, and whether Apple can establish that the material in question meets the legal definition of a trade secret.