Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit against OpenAI just got sharper. A federal judge has granted more of Apple's discovery requests, ordering OpenAI to hand over detailed information about the ex-Apple employees at the heart of the case — their devices, their messaging apps, and how they used AI tools on the job, AppleInsider reported on Wednesday.
The ruling, from Judge Edward Davila, is the latest turn in a case that has moved unusually fast for a corporate lawsuit — largely because Apple has been pressing for emergency discovery, arguing that delays materially hurt it. Davila had previously sided with Apple in part but rejected some requests as too broad. This time, Apple narrowed its ask: instead of covering all former Apple employees, the requests target specifically those hired by OpenAI. On that narrower basis, the judge granted more of them.
What OpenAI now has to produce is specific and uncomfortable. It must detail the devices used by ex-Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Tan to store confidential Apple information, the accounts and messaging apps containing that information, and their use of AI tools for both personal and OpenAI work. It must also account for any confidential Apple information that may have been destroyed, provide testimony about Apple information specifically used in battery technologies and metal finishings, and explain how it did — or did not — try to prevent the use of that information. Recruitment interviews with Apple employees are on the list too.
Apple didn't get everything. Davila denied access to OpenAI's own internal investigations into the matter, and to certain other details about the ex-employees' devices and accounts. But two of the denied requests were turned down only because they were too broad — the judge said they were "more appropriately addressed through ordinary merits discovery," meaning Apple may still get them once the trial proper gets underway.
The order matters because it tests the story OpenAI has been telling. The company appears to have abandoned its earlier claims of not having used confidential information, and earlier this month it voluntarily promised not to use any alleged Apple trade secrets while the suit plays out — a pledge that looked like getting ahead of an inevitable court order. Now the court is demanding the receipts: what was taken, where it went, and what OpenAI did about it.
OpenAI has 14 days to comply. The clock is running toward a trial where the central question isn't just whether secrets changed hands, but whether they helped build the AI hardware device OpenAI is reportedly developing — the device at the center of this whole fight.
— via AppleInsider