Apple asks judge to bar OpenAI from using alleged trade secrets

Apple Inc. asked a federal judge on Monday to immediately order OpenAI to stop using what it calls stolen trade secrets, the latest salvo in its lawsuit accusing the artificial intelligence company of engaging in a coordinated campaign to steal proprietary information about upcoming products.

The company is seeking a court order that would also require OpenAI to return any confidential information to Apple and cease any efforts to acquire other private details. The order would stay in place while Apple’s lawsuit proceeds.

“If Apple’s trade secrets are used and spread throughout OpenAI, or get embedded in its products and operations, the damage cannot be undone,” lawyers for the company said in a court filing Tuesday.

In a statement, OpenAI said Apple’s request is “both based on false information and completely unnecessary.”

“We do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets,” the company said in a post on its website. “We’re much more interested in building innovative products and technologies that push the frontier.”

The iPhone maker sued OpenAI and its hardware chief in July, upending a relationship between two companies that worked together as partners in recent years.

OpenAI, maker of the ChatGPT chatbot, has supplied vital technology to the Apple Intelligence platform and Siri digital assistant. But tensions have been growing for the past year – worsened by OpenAI enlisting former Apple design visionary Jony Ive to help develop devices. The AI company has hired more than 400 former Apple employees, according to the suit.

Apple’s lawsuit also names a former iPhone engineer, Chang Liu, who joined OpenAI in January. Apple says he accessed confidential hardware-related files over a period of several weeks, while developing devices for OpenAI, after discovering an authentication bug that allowed him to tap into Apple’s information.

However, OpenAI said that Liu was approached by his former colleagues at Apple who were seeking help locating information they needed for their work. OpenAI published excerpts of text messages between an unidentified Apple employee and Liu that purport to show the request for help.

OpenAI has until Aug. 17 to file a response to Apple’s motion with the court. The judge is scheduled to hear arguments on the motion on Oct. 1.