Apple Files Preliminary-Injunction Motion Against OpenAI
Apple filed a preliminary-injunction motion on August 3 in its trade-secrets case against OpenAI, io Products and two former Apple employees. The motion asks the court to restrict access to Apple secrets, preserve evidence, permit forensic inspections and return confidential material; a hearing is scheduled for October 1. OpenAI rejected the request and denied possessing or wanting Apple's trade secrets.
Apple filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on August 3 in its trade-secrets case against OpenAI, io Products and former Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan. The redacted filing is Document 38 in Apple Inc. v. Liu et al., case 5:26-cv-07078-EJD in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Its face lists an October 1 hearing before Judge Edward J. Davila.
The motion presents Apple's allegations and requested relief; it is not a court finding. OpenAI publicly rejected the request on August 3 and denied possessing or wanting Apple's trade secrets.
What Apple asks the court to order
Apple asks the court to bar the defendants from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing its proprietary and trade-secret information and from destroying or concealing relevant evidence. The company also seeks forensic images and inspections of devices, cloud storage, email, messaging platforms and other repositories that may contain Apple material, followed by collection and return of any confidential information found.
The filing says Apple is concurrently seeking expedited discovery, including document production and depositions. Apple argues that it faces irreparable harm if its proprietary information is used in OpenAI's hardware work. Those assertions remain contested, and the retrieved motion does not contain a ruling on the requested injunction.
OpenAI disputes Apple's account
OpenAI said Apple's request is unnecessary and based on false information. The company also disputed Apple's description of pre-suit communications, saying Apple's outside counsel emailed the wrong person and that an asserted conversation with OpenAI's general counsel did not occur. OpenAI published redacted emails and messages that it says support its account. These are OpenAI's claims, not findings by the court.
OpenAI further said Apple employees contacted Liu after his departure for help locating information and attributed continued file access to Apple's offboarding controls. Apple, by contrast, alleges in its motion that Liu used residual access to download sensitive documents and that Tan sought or used confidential material in connection with OpenAI's hardware efforts.
Case background and operational relevance
Apple filed the underlying lawsuit on July 10. Associated Press reporting identified the former employees and io Products among the defendants and described Apple's allegations that confidential hardware-development information benefited OpenAI's consumer-device work. No defendant has been found liable.
For AI and hardware teams, the dispute highlights the evidentiary importance of prompt offboarding, access revocation, confidentiality controls, audit logs and preservation procedures when employees move between competitors. Those controls do not resolve the merits, but they affect what records exist when proprietary product work becomes the subject of litigation.
Key Points
- 1Apple's August 3 court filing seeks limits on access to its trade secrets, evidence preservation, forensic inspections and return of confidential material.
- 2OpenAI disputes Apple's account and denies possessing or wanting Apple trade secrets; the competing claims have not been adjudicated.
- 3The motion lists an October 1 hearing, making offboarding, access logging and evidence preservation immediate operational lessons rather than proof of liability.
Scoring Rationale
The preliminary-injunction motion concerns major AI and consumer-technology companies and alleged use of proprietary hardware information. It is relevant to teams managing employee transitions, access controls and litigation preservation, while the allegations and requested relief remain unadjudicated.
Sources
Primary source and supporting public references used for this report.
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