US technology giant Apple filed a lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and two of its former employees, alleging that trade secrets were stolen. In the petition submitted to the Federal Court of the Northern District of California, it was claimed that OpenAI unfairly obtained Apple’s confidential hardware technologies and commercial information and used them in its own artificial intelligence hardware projects.
Apple’s former employees Tang Tan and Chang Liu were also named as defendants in the case. The company claimed that the people in question transferred confidential product development information and trade secrets to OpenAI after leaving Apple. While it was stated that Tang Tan currently works as the head of OpenAI’s hardware unit, it was stated that Chang Liu moved to OpenAI after working in sensitive product development studies at Apple.
While Apple argued that the information in question was used in OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-supported consumer electronics projects, it requested the court to stop the use of this information in addition to financial compensation.
OpenAI denied the allegations. In the statement made by the company, it was emphasized that they are not interested in the trade secrets of rival companies and that they focus on developing innovative artificial intelligence technologies.
The case points out that relations between the two technology giants have become significantly strained after the collaboration between Apple and OpenAI, which started with the integration of ChatGPT into Apple devices in 2024.
