Apple filing says ex-engineer used its schematic at OpenAI

Apple's latest court filing in its trade-secret suit against former engineer Chang Liu and OpenAI says an initial forensic analysis of Liu's MacBook shows he downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic and "used it in his work at OpenAI," 9to5Mac reported.

Liu, described in the filing as a "senior system electrical engineer at Apple," left the company for OpenAI in January 2026. Apple says he ran the schematic through an LTspice simulation in March, and that the file synced from a Mac mini through iCloud to the Apple-issued MacBook the company was later able to examine. Apple now wants the Mac mini too.

The filing lists four things the forensic review turned up: that Liu used the schematic at OpenAI; that he and OpenAI colleagues "were well-aware" of his unauthorized access to Apple's cloud storage; that after Apple's investigation began he "sent instructions for destroying evidence" to an OpenAI colleague who agreed to comply; and that he deployed a tool at OpenAI "that has the same name as an internal Apple engineering application." Apple frames the leakage of a trade secret into AI systems as "irreversible and continually propagating uses."

Apple sued in July 2026, moved for a preliminary injunction on August 4, and renewed an expedited-discovery request on August 25 in the Northern District of California (case CANDCE-26-07078). The August 31 motion asks the court to order production of the Mac mini and depositions of key OpenAI personnel, calling the record "shocking evidence—which Defendants chose to ignore."