OpenAI Calls Apple's Trade-Secret Theft Suit ‘Aggressive and Oddly Personal’

The clash between the two giants has entered a new round. In a blog post published on Monday evening, OpenAI responded to Apple's lawsuit, calling it “sloppy, aggressive, and oddly personal.” “We don't have — and we don't want — a single one of their trade secrets,” the maker of ChatGPT declared, accusing Apple of “vague allegations” and of trying to “change its story.”

The dispute began last month, when Apple filed suit alleging that OpenAI had stolen hardware designs as it prepared to launch its own AI-focused devices. The two companies are increasingly encroaching on each other's turf: OpenAI is trying its hand at consumer electronics, while Apple has teamed up with Google to overhaul its Siri voice assistant.

Once partners, the companies began drifting apart after OpenAI acquired io, a design studio founded by former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive, and poached a number of its staff. In its lawsuit, Apple claims that OpenAI now employs more than 400 of its former specialists.

Mutual recriminations

OpenAI laid out what it sees as its opponent's missteps. According to the startup, Apple's lawyers “wrote to the wrong person, confusing two Asian surnames,” and also “claimed to have had a conversation with our general counsel that they now admit never took place.” Apple, OpenAI says, warned of an internal investigation back in February but made no specific accusations at the time, saying it was “working things out,” after which it went silent for five months and then abruptly filed suit.

Apple accused a former employee, Chang Liu, who had worked on its “most sensitive” development programs, of accessing secrets after leaving in January. But OpenAI counters that Apple's own employees approached Liu “asking for help finding that information” — a fact the startup says Apple “only now acknowledges.”

A second figure in the case is OpenAI's head of hardware, Tang Tan, whom Apple accused of extracting confidential information during interviews with its employees. OpenAI maintains that Tan always made it clear to the team that no one else's confidential information could be used.

Apple, meanwhile, is seeking a preliminary injunction that would bar the former employees and OpenAI from using or disclosing its trade secrets, and is asking the court to expedite the gathering of evidence and to compel several employees, including Liu and Tan, to testify under oath.

“Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time, having built its reputation on a maniacal attention to the smallest details. This sloppy, aggressive, and oddly personal lawsuit, unfortunately, does not live up to that reputation,” OpenAI concluded. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: Ars Technica