Apple has sued OpenAI and two former Apple engineers, accusing the artificial intelligence company of benefiting from the alleged theft of confidential hardware trade secrets as it accelerates its push into consumer devices, marking a dramatic escalation in tensions between two companies that have also been strategic partners.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court on July 10, alleges that former Apple executives Tang Tan and Chang Liu improperly retained and transferred proprietary information related to Apple’s hardware development and global supply chain before joining OpenAI. Apple claims the information could provide an unfair advantage as OpenAI expands beyond software into AI-powered consumer hardware.
The case does not involve OpenAI’s large language models or ChatGPT technology. Instead, Apple’s complaint centers on confidential engineering documents, product development processes and supply chain information that it says constitute valuable trade secrets developed over years of research and investment.
According to the lawsuit, Apple alleges that the two former employees took sensitive internal information before leaving the company and that OpenAI either encouraged the acquisition of the materials or knowingly benefited from them while recruiting Apple engineers for its growing hardware division.
OpenAI has denied the allegations.
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