Apple’s New Evidence in OpenAI Lawsuit
Liu downloaded the circuit schematic from Apple in March, two months after he left the company. Liu used the schematic to run a simulation using electrical engineering tool LTspice, and then messaged people telling them he ran the simulation for power conversion development work.
[…]
Liu used the Apple schematic on a Mac mini that later synced to the MacBook he took from Apple, which is why Apple knows about it. Apple now wants to investigate the Mac mini and other devices Liu still has in his possession.
Apple says the “shocking evidence” is proof that its trade secrets are in active use and evidence is being destroyed, which is why expedited discovery is needed.
The first point seems really bad for OpenAI. On the fourth point, I’m not sure what Apple is alleging here — I think they’re alleging that Liu took an Apple internal engineering app with him over to OpenAI?
William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele (MacRumors):
OpenAI has responded to Apple’s latest filing about the theft of confidential information, by filing its own rebuttal which again accuses the company of trying to stop employees leaving. According to Reuters, OpenAI is now also calling out Apple for being behind on AI.
[…]
“[Employees] can leave a company like Apple that has struggled to adopt AI and move to an exciting startup that builds innovative products,” says OpenAI in its new filing. “Apple may not like those choices. But it cannot claim those choices are unlawful, and it cannot use its own sloppy procedures to blame others for its own mess.”
On the face of it, the evidence Apple provided yesterday does appear damning. OpenAI doesn’t seem to be denying that confidential Apple information was used by the company, but rather claiming that the iPhone maker failed to properly protect it.
It sounds like there’s a lot of evidence against Chang Liu, but Apple is suing OpenAI.
Previously:
Update (2026-10-14): Marcus Mendes:
Judge Edward Davila today granted some of Apple’s requests for expedited discovery in its trade secrets lawsuit against former employees, OpenAI, and io Products.
OpenAI today suggested Apple could be using its trade secrets, the very thing Apple is already suing OpenAI for. In a court filing, OpenAI accused an ex-employee of giving sensitive data about an unreleased product to Apple.
The unnamed employee joined OpenAI from Apple and then returned after six months. OpenAI claims the person sent “over a hundred highly confidential files” to personal accounts, including manufacturing data and detailed images of at least one unreleased product. The former employee allegedly “made a presentation” on OpenAI product plans for Apple’s senior leadership “months ago,” and OpenAI is worried Apple could use that information to further its work on AI devices.
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"Your Honor, the bank left the vault door open. What was I supposed to do, not walk in and steal a million dollars? That's crazy talk. The bank's just mad that I was leaving them for another bank."
Interestingly, OpenAI's response doesn't seem to directly actually address the new allegations, which is a... choice. Banging the table when you don't have the law or the facts on your side, and all that.
"Liu used the Apple schematic on a Mac mini that later synced to the MacBook he took from Apple"
That sounds a bit like Apple snooping on their eployees / former employees to me.
@Kristoffer: "That sounds a bit like Apple snooping on their eployees / former employees to me."
It sounded to me like that was a new detail that Apple learned during the legal discovery process, not something they learned through snooping. Of course, legal discovery IS very invasive snooping, but it is different than blanket surveilance of employees or former employees.
Yeah, you're right. Reading the article I see that the MacBook was handed over to Apple for the investigation. I'm guessing the sync was done manually.
I mean... you have zero privacy rights on your work machine. If he synced something to that work machine, it is his fault.
“ you have zero privacy rights on your work machine.”
Why shouldn’t people have privacy rights on their work machine? Lots of the time their work machine is their only computer. Thats a good thing for their personal budget as well as the environment
Shouldn’t we encourage that instead of discouraging that?
@Manx: No. A company is liable for everything that happens using their hardware. Unless you want employees to have to fund/own their own computers and remote into hardened VMs to do any work, you don't want to relax that boundary.
If you have privacy rights on your work machine, corporate is going to lock them down even harder than they already do and it will make getting anything done even harder. Companies aren't going to just shrug and say "oh well, I guess we can't monitor what our employees are doing on our hardware," so whatever other options they come up with is going to be worse than the status quo.
None of this is to say that I like corporations spying on me while I'm working for them, but there are zero ways to slice it that are better, imo.
"A company is liable for everything that happens using their hardware."
That's not true. That's like claiming that if I use the company car to rob a bank, the company is liable for the bank robbery.
A company is generally liable for things people do with its hardware *within the scope of employment.* If I take my company-issued laptop home and use it to hack the NSA, I am liable, not my employer.
There could be some liability if the company was negligent, like if a gun manufacturer let random employees take a bunch of guns home with them and somebody got shot. But I don't see how that applies to a computer.
@Plume: I guess that distinction is accurate and my point was overstated. Was more thinking of information disclosures like HIPPA, accessing/storing illegal content on the machine, etc.
Heck, if I was an employer I wouldn't let employees use work machines for personal stuff just because I've seen how much malware and sketchy USB things get plugged into personal computers.
But regardless, if the company owns the hardware, you don't have a right to privacy on it. Super well established legally, you can try to fight it if you want, but you are going to lose without some fundamental legal changes.
