The two former Apple employees named in the suit are Chang Liu, a former senior system electrical engineer, and former vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, Tang Yew Tan. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.
Apple alleged that Liu failed to return a company-issued work laptop and later used an authentication bug to access Apple's internal network, downloading "dozens of Apple's confidential hardware-related files."
The iPhone maker also claimed that OpenAI’s hardware chief Tan had been "methodically using Apple’s confidential information to benefit OpenAI" before his departure by emailing himself information about Apple suppliers and internal industry summaries. Tan worked on the iPhone for most of his 24-year tenure at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page.
Apple alleged that Tan encouraged Apple employees to bring parts from Apple to job interviews at OpenAI for “show and tell” sessions, citing an incident in its filing where one OpenAI job candidate allegedly said that he “didn’t even know we could take those from the office.”
OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, the company's commercial arm, and io Products, which OpenAI acquired, were also named as defendants.
In its complaint, Apple claimed it wrote to OpenAI in February with concerns that its confidential information was making its way to OpenAI and asking to discuss the matter, but it received no reply.
More than 400 former Apple employees now work for OpenAI, it said in its filing, adding that “it is not surprising” that some of them have knowledge of its confidential information.
“That OpenAI now employs people who were once entrusted with Apple’s trade secrets does not entitle OpenAI to use that information to jumpstart its hardware efforts,” the iPhone maker wrote in its complaint.
Apple also alleged that OpenAI employees sought confidential information from Apple suppliers, at one point allegedly having one of those suppliers carry out what Apple called a secret metal finishing technique on the belief that OpenAI had Apple’s permission to use the technique.
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