The Apple Park campus stands in this aerial photograph taken above Cupertino, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019.
Sam Hall | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple on Friday sued OpenAI in federal court in Northern California, alleging trade secret theft, saying that the artificial intelligence lab took the iPhone maker's intellectual property in order to develop its own consumer hardware.
"This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple's trade secrets and confidential information," the company said in a legal filing.
It's a shocking reversal for the two companies, which entered into a high-profile partnership in 2024 when ChatGPT was integrated into the iPhone's operating system. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited Apple's headquarters for the announcement.
But relations between the two companies have chilled since OpenAI announced plans to enter the hardware industry last year, when it bought former Apple designer Jony Ive's startup, called IO Products, for $6.4 billion.
Apple's updated version of its Siri assistant, which is coming out this fall, is based on Google's Gemini AI models instead of ChatGPT.
Most of Apple's allegations involve former employees who have interviewed with or joined OpenAI.
Apple alleged that OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, who is a former Apple vice president, has directed Apple employees interviewing at OpenAI to share Apple secrets as part of the interviewing process. Tan is named as a defendant in the suit.
"He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring 'actual parts' from Apple to their interviews for 'show and tell' sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information," Apple said in the filing.
Apple alleged that OpenAI coached departing Apple employees in how to evade security processes when leaving the iPhone maker, and that Chang Liu, a former employee who joined OpenAI, stole an Apple laptop. Liu is named as a defendant in the suit.
It also said that Apple believes that OpenAI is asking hardware firms to carry out a metal finishing technique that Apple invented, while "misleading the partner to believe they had Apple's permission to do so."
"Recently, significant evidence has emerged suggesting individuals employed by OpenAI wrongfully took Apple's secret and confidential information regarding our unreleased technologies, processes, and products," an Apple representative told CNBC in a statement.
IO Products is also named in the lawsuit.
OpenAI hasn't announced when or what its hardware products will be, but Altman said in November that it had finished its first prototypes.
Apple did not comment on whether the lawsuit will affect the partnership with OpenAI in which the lab's ChatGPT is integrated into Apple Intelligence.
Apple is seeking damages, injunctions, and an order to force OpenAI to stop using its trade secrets.
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