Apple has asked a court to put OpenAI on a short leash. In a filing this week, the iPhone maker sought a preliminary injunction that would bar OpenAI and two former Apple employees from touching what it says are its trade secrets, escalating a lawsuit that already had the two companies at each other’s throats.
The request would stop the defendants from accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing the confidential information Apple claims was taken. Apple also asked for expedited discovery and depositions from OpenAI and io Products, the hardware arm built around Jony Ive.
The injunction sits inside a trade-secrets case Apple filed in July, which accuses OpenAI of lifting hardware secrets to speed its push into consumer devices. Apple’s original complaint alleged that departing staff brought prototypes to ‘show and tell’ job interviews.
The filing names names. It points to Chang Liu, a former senior electrical engineer, and Tang Yew Tan, a former vice-president of product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch, among the ex-Apple staff now at OpenAI.
OpenAI rejects the premise flatly. ‘Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets,’ the company said.
