Apple Sues OpenAI, Alleging Theft of Trade Secrets

United States (ANTARA) — Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday (7/7), accusing the artificial intelligence company of stealing its trade secrets to develop its own hardware.

According to a report by The Guardian on Friday (7/7), Apple stated in its lawsuit that OpenAI recruited Apple employees and persuaded them to hand over confidential materials, product designs, and other information highly protected by the company.

“Recently, significant evidence has emerged showing that individuals working at OpenAI unlawfully took Apple’s confidential and proprietary information relating to our technology, processes, and unreleased products,” said an Apple spokesperson.

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company is reviewing the lawsuit documents filed in court.

“We are not interested in other companies’ trade secrets,” he said.

“We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere,” he added.

Under a previous agreement, Apple integrated OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, into the operating systems of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

However, when Apple introduced an update to its voice assistant Siri last month, the AI component used was based on Google’s Gemini AI model rather than ChatGPT.

Tensions between the two companies began to emerge last year, when OpenAI spent USD 6.4 billion (approximately Rp115.7 trillion) to acquire a hardware startup founded by former Apple design expert Jony Ive.

Ive’s startup, io Products, is also named in Apple’s lawsuit.

“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on a foundation that is deeply compromised, broken to its core by an unlawful dependence on wrongfully obtained trade secrets,” Apple said in its court filing, among other statements.

Tan Yew Tan, head of OpenAI’s hardware division and a former Apple vice president, is named in the lawsuit.

Apple accuses Tan of bringing information about Apple’s suppliers to OpenAI and encouraging OpenAI job candidates to disclose confidential company information.

In the filing, Apple alleges that he directed job candidates still working at Apple to bring “original components” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions, in which he and his team at OpenAI could obtain further confidential Apple information.

Chang Liu, another former Apple employee named in the lawsuit who later worked at OpenAI, is accused of taking an Apple laptop when leaving the company.

Apple stated that Liu exploited an authentication loophole to breach the company’s internal network and download “dozens of confidential Apple files related to hardware.”

“Our teams continue to develop breakthrough technology to create the world’s best products and services, and protecting their work and intellectual property is something we take extremely seriously,” said the Apple spokesperson.

In its lawsuit, Apple is seeking damages as well as a court order preventing OpenAI from possessing or using the company’s trade secrets.