OpenAI asks the court to dismiss Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit
OpenAI is not answering Apple’s trade-secrets case on the merits of stolen schematics. It is attacking whether Apple ever treated the information like a secret. Per TechCrunch, OpenAI’s motion to dismiss argues Apple’s own security and offboarding practices undercut the claim, while Apple still presses for expedited discovery and a preliminary injunction aimed at OpenAI’s hardware push through io.
What Apple’s injunction ask covers
Apple’s July complaint in the Northern District of California names OpenAI, hardware subsidiary io Products, and former Apple engineers Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu. It alleges a scheme to pull confidential hardware information into OpenAI’s device plans. This week Apple asked the court to speed discovery, saying an internal investigation points to additional former employees who may have participated in or witnessed alleged theft.
The preliminary injunction ask is the near-term weapon. If granted, it could constrain how OpenAI and io use any information Apple labels as trade secrets while the case crawls. That is leverage against a competitor building AI-era hardware with Jony Ive’s design orbit in the mix. Apple’s theory is talent poaching plus file exfiltration. OpenAI’s theory is a company losing people and reaching for a court order.
OpenAI’s motion-to-dismiss theory
OpenAI’s filing, as covered by TechCrunch, leans on Apple’s hygiene. It says Apple let employees use personal iCloud accounts for work and failed to revoke access cleanly after exits. Exhibits allegedly show an Apple manager still logged into Liu’s personal iCloud after he left, transferring files and later pinging him for help on Apple projects. OpenAI casts that as Apple’s mismanagement, not OpenAI theft.
The legal hook is sharper than the unlocked-door meme. Trade-secret law cares whether the owner took reasonable steps to keep information secret. If Apple’s offboarding left doors open, OpenAI argues, the complaint’s theft frame collapses into ordinary messy access. OpenAI also says Apple never identified specific secrets, only generic categories of product development: component manufacturing, testing, vendor relationships, distribution. Categories are not secrets. The motion calls the suit baseless and pretextual, a talent-war lawsuit dressed as IP enforcement, and insists OpenAI is building something entirely new with no use, need, or desire for Apple’s trade secrets.
Named former employees in the fight
Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer after more than two decades at Apple, sits at the center of recruiting allegations. Apple claims interview practices that pressed candidates on unreleased products. OpenAI says Tan made clear he would not take confidential information from other companies.
Chang Liu is the access story. Apple alleges Liu left in early 2026, kept an Apple laptop, and used an authentication gap to download large volumes of confidential hardware files. OpenAI’s exhibits flip the narrative toward Apple staff still reaching into Liu’s personal cloud. A joint Rule 12(b)(6) motion covers OpenAI entities, io, Tan, and Liu. Coverage points to an early October hearing before Judge Edward J. Davila in San Jose, with Apple’s injunction and OpenAI’s dismissal on the same calendar.
What a ruling would change for io hardware
Dismissal with prejudice would clear a cloud over io’s supplier talks and shipping timeline. A surviving case, or a real injunction, would force OpenAI to litigate every schematic claim under discovery lights and could slow hardware iterations that depend on ex-Apple manufacturing intuition even when no file changed hands. Apple has already floated a much wider alumni footprint at OpenAI; the named pair are the tip Apple chose to plead.
Analysis: this is a talent war with trade-secret vocabulary. Apple needs specific secrets and clean custody facts. OpenAI needs the judge to see a retention problem, not a heist. Until Davila rules, treat both companies’ blogs as advocacy. Watch whether Apple’s reply finally lists particular documents and systems, or keeps speaking in categories. Categories lose.
