Two weeks after filing the dismissal request, Apple has submitted its response. The company maintains its allegations of confidentiality in full and accuses the opposing side of missing the point. The dispute centers on a procedural issue that is often overlooked in media coverage.
Since July, a lawsuit has been underway in a federal court in Northern California, in which Apple accuses two former employees, as well as OpenAI and the hardware company io Products, of stealing trade secrets. In early August, the opposing side filed a motion to dismiss the case, questioning, among other things, Apple's own security measures. Apple has now responded, requesting that the motion be dismissed entirely.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Apple maintains all allegations and requests that the dismissal request be rejected in its entirety.
- The company accuses the opposing side of using legal arguments and external evidence that are irrelevant at this stage of the proceedings.
- Regarding the chat history published by OpenAI, Apple states that it concerns a different process than the one described in the lawsuit.
- The core allegation is that a former employee accessed a file storage system via a login error.
- Nothing is decided yet: In this step, a court only checks whether the claim has been presented coherently.
What is being disputed in this procedural step
The crucial point is procedural in nature, and Apple itself makes it its main argument. In a motion to dismiss, the court does not examine whether the allegations are true. It solely examines whether the complaint presents enough facts to make the claim even plausible. All information is assumed in favor of the plaintiff.
This is precisely the point Apple's response addresses: The opposing side repeatedly relies on legal arguments and evidence from outside the complaint, offers improbable, innocuous explanations, and demands that the court draw conclusions in its favor. This is not how a dismissal motion works. As long as enough facts have been presented to support a plausible claim, any substantive disagreement about the allegations is irrelevant at this stage.
What the court will decide soon is not a statement about who is right. It is a statement about whether the proceedings will proceed to the taking of evidence.
According to Apple, the published chat history concerns something else
A separate section of the response addresses a heavily redacted transcript of a conversation that OpenAI had published on its website. In it, a colleague still employed at Apple asks former employee Chang Liu for information about projects. OpenAI interpreted this as evidence that Apple's account of unauthorized access is misleading – after all, Apple employees themselves had requested assistance.
Apple counters that the lawsuit alleges something different. The accusation is not that Liu answered questions, but that after leaving the company, he exploited a login error to access a file storage system containing confidential documents and subsequently downloaded files over a period of weeks. A supervisor's question regarding the handover of documents does not constitute permission for such access. The published document, therefore, provides at best a harmless explanation for behavior that is not even the subject of the lawsuit.
This presentation builds on what OpenAI had presented at the beginning of August with emails and chat histories.
Dispute over components in job interviews
A second issue concerns former Apple Vice President Tang Tan. OpenAI argued that Tan had merely asked applicants to bring readily available parts to a demonstration session. Apple denies this: An individual then employed by Apple was asked to bring components from their own confidential work, specifically batteries, motherboards, and shielding.
The response offers a temporal argument: Just a few hours before an interview, an applicant had downloaded files related to a highly confidential project and taken screenshots – precisely the project that Tan then discussed during the interview. For products available to the public, the argument goes, no one needs a demonstration.
Both sides have so far only made assertions. Neither has been proven; that is the task of the taking of evidence, which will only take place if the lawsuit survives this stage.
How the process has developed so far
The dispute has been ongoing for about six weeks and has changed direction several times during this period.
| Date | Procedure step |
|---|---|
| July 11 | Apple files lawsuit against two former employees, OpenAI and io Products |
| July 14 | The opposing side states that there is no evidence to support the accusation. |
| July 17 | Apple expands evidence collection to dozens of employees |
| August 4th | OpenAI presents emails and chat histories |
| August 6 | Application for dismissal of the action |
| August 19 | Apple's response, request for complete dismissal |
It remains striking who Apple is not holding accountable in the proceedings. Jony Ive, who co-founded io Products and is responsible for the hardware, does not appear as a defendant – the reasons for this lie in the contractual terms, not in the substance of the case. The extent of Apple's evidence gathering is demonstrated by its access to documents belonging to dozens of OpenAI employees.
Why Apple is even engaged in this dispute
The economic core of the case is not damages. Apple has lost two former executives to a company developing a device intended to compete with the iPhone for the same role. A lawsuit for breach of trade secrets delays this development, ties up resources, and sends a signal to all other employees who receive similar offers. The lawsuit is part of the struggle over the next generation of devices, not merely a legal footnote.
At the same time, the chosen structure is risky. Anyone seeking to protect supplier relationships and component knowledge as trade secrets must demonstrate what aspects of them are not already common industry knowledge – and that is precisely where the opposing side has focused its efforts. Our expectation: The court will uphold some of the claims and reject others. A complete dismissal would be surprising given this level of detail.
Do you think it's right for a corporation to take action against poached employees to hinder a competing product – or is that the legitimate protection of years of development work? Feel free to disagree in the comments.
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