OpenAI denied Apple's allegations of trade secret theft on Monday, saying the iPhone maker failed to show any confidential information was stolen by former employees. "This dispute is a mess of Apple's own making, and it is trying to blame everyone else," OpenAI said in a filing late Monday in US District Court in San Jose, California.
Apple sued OpenAI and former Apple employees Tang Tan and Chang Liu in July, accusing them of misappropriating trade secrets related to hardware design, manufacturing and supply-chain operations as the ChatGPT maker pushes into consumer devices. The AI lab, led by CEO Sam Altman, contends Apple is using the lawsuit to slow a potential competitor and discourage employee departures.
OpenAI has hired roughly 400 employees from Apple for its hardware initiative, the two companies have written in court filings. California law allows employees to freely move between rivals, OpenAI said. The lawsuit represented a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two companies, which just two years ago forged a partnership intended to boost ChatGPT's reach and help Apple gain a firmer footing in AI.
In its original lawsuit, Apple argued that OpenAI's hiring of Apple employees was part of the AI lab's strategy to learn a competitor's secrets. Apple said Tan and Liu both accessed internal Apple files after they left the company. OpenAI said on Monday that Apple encourages its employees to use personal iCloud accounts to access Apple work documents and perform their work functions, making it difficult for departing employees to separate personal and company information.