Apple has filed a preliminary injunction against OpenAI and two of its former executives in a US court, seeking to prevent the defendants from accessing, using and disclosing confidential information in a massive trade secret theft case involving the development of new hardware devices.
Apple has filed a preliminary injunction in a US court against OpenAI and two of its former executives, seeking to prevent the defendants from accessing, using and disclosing confidential information in a massive trade secret theft case involving the development of new hardware devices.
This was reported by Reuters, citing court documents filed on Monday.
Last month, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and two of its former employees — former vice president of product design (iPhone and Apple Watch) Tang Yu Tan and senior engineer Chang Liu. Both now work for OpenAI. Apple accuses them of misappropriating confidential developments to help the creators of ChatGPT enter the consumer electronics market.
In the new motion, the iPhone maker also seeks expedited discovery, including documents proving the defendants' access to the patented information. Apple's lawyers are also asking the judge to subpoena not only Tan and Liu, but also two other OpenAI employees (Yu-Ting Peng and another unnamed former Apple employee), as well as corporate representatives of io Products, an OpenAI hardware startup subsidiary founded by Jony Ive.
"Apple will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction," the company said in a statement.
For its part, OpenAI categorically denies all the allegations. In its official blog, the company's representatives called the request for an injunction "completely unnecessary and based on false information": "We do not have and do not need any of their trade secrets." In addition, OpenAI drew attention to the fact that Apple's lawyers had previously mixed up the names of employees in e-mail correspondence, which allegedly indicates the frivolity of the allegations.
