Apple sues OpenAI in US federal court alleging a scheme to steal iPhone trade secrets used to build a competing consumer hardware device
Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in US federal court, alleging a months-long scheme to misappropriate trade secrets. The claim centres on the allegation that current and former Apple employees, after moving to OpenAI, used confidential information obtained at Apple to advance OpenAI's development of a consumer hardware device, described in sources as a screen-free 'third core device' that OpenAI is developing following its acquisition of designer Jony Ive's startup io for $6.4 billion. The complaint names specific individuals. Tang Tan, described as a 24-year Apple veteran who ran iPhone and Apple Watch product design before becoming OpenAI's hardware chief, is alleged to have used Apple's secret project code names to recruit employees and coached departing staff on evading Apple's security procedures. He is also alleged to have asked job candidates to bring actual parts from unreleased Apple products to interviews for what the complaint describes as 'show and tell'. A second named individual, engineer Chang Liu, is alleged to have downloaded dozens of confidential files before leaving Apple, with a message recovered in the complaint reading: 'LOL, I found out I can access the network storage, so funny.' Liu reportedly never returned his Apple laptop. The lawsuit arrives two years after Apple and OpenAI entered a commercial partnership to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone, making the litigation an unusually sharp breakdown of a recently announced strategic alliance. The complaint was filed in federal court in the United States.
Why this matters
This case activates trade secrets, employment law, and technology litigation simultaneously across what is now one of the highest-stakes competitive dynamics in the global technology sector. The specific allegations around coached departing employees and deliberate document exfiltration, if proven, would represent textbook trade secret misappropriation. For commercial lawyers, the case raises important questions about the adequacy of offboarding procedures, device return policies, and access controls at technology companies, all of which are due diligence considerations when advising clients on acquisitions of or investments in technology businesses. The partnership-to-litigation arc also signals that AI hardware is now a genuinely contested space between Apple and OpenAI, with significant commercial stakes on both sides.
On the Ground
A trainee on a trade secrets dispute of this kind would assist with disclosure review and categorisation of potentially relevant documents, preparation of a chronology of key employee movements and data access events, and research into the relevant legal test for misappropriation to support a skeleton argument.
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