Apple asks judge to bar OpenAI from alleged trade secrets

The trade-secrets fight between Apple and OpenAI escalated on Monday, when Apple asked a US judge for a preliminary injunction that would bar OpenAI and two former Apple staffers from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing what Apple says is its confidential information, Reuters reported. Apple's filing argues the company 'will be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction,' and it also asked for depositions from corporate representatives of both OpenAI and io Products, listed as a defendant in the suit.

The two named ex-employees are Chang Liu, a former Apple senior system electrical engineer, and Tang Yew Tan, Apple's former vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch. Both now work at OpenAI. In the underlying case filed last month, Apple alleges 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.' It accuses Tan of methodically emailing himself information about Apple suppliers and internal industry summaries before his departure.

OpenAI is unusually blunt in its reply. In a Monday-night blog post carried by Yahoo Finance, the company said Apple's motion is 'both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.' That is a categorical denial, not the usual 'we take these allegations seriously' hedge, and it sets up a genuine factual dispute rather than a quiet settlement.

Why it matters beyond the docket: a preliminary injunction, if granted, is the sort of order that can freeze a product program, and OpenAI's foray into consumer hardware is the thing Apple most wants to slow. The honest caveat is that what has surfaced so far is one side's motion and the other side's blog post, and neither is settled fact. The reporting does not tell us which specific Apple hardware program the allegedly copied files relate to, when the court is expected to rule, or what becomes of the additional OpenAI employees named alongside Liu and Tan, including one identified as Yu-Ting Peng.

For anyone building on top of OpenAI's forthcoming device or planning against it, the near-term signal is scheduling risk rather than any confirmed hardware detail. The people worth watching now are the judge and OpenAI's device team, in that order.