Apple puts dozens of former employees at OpenAI on legal notice
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| Apple appears to believe that additional former employees have shared company information with OpenAI. Credit: Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images |
Former Apple employees who now work at OpenAI have been put on notice.
According to a new report from Financial Times, Apple has sent legal preservation letters to roughly 40 former employees, which request that they save any documents or communication that could be relevant to their prior employer.
Last week, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that two former employees who went on to work for the AI giant shared Apple's trade secrets. Apple believes that this confidential information was used by OpenAI to develop the consumer hardware products that the AI company is currently working on.
OpenAI has denied the allegations, of course. However, in its lawsuit, Apple said that it believes this is "just the tip of the iceberg."
So, what do these new legal letters mean? It appears that Apple believes that there may be more former employees who misused confidential company information besides Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu, the two employees whom Apple is currently suing. The legal letters could also serve as a warning from Apple, putting former employees on notice that Apple is watching their work closely. Based on the Financial Times report, the employees could also be subject to discovery requests as the lawsuit unfolds.
Tan is Apple's former Vice President of Product Design and currently works at OpenAI as the company's Chief Hardware Officer. Liu was formerly an iPhone engineer at Apple and left the company to join OpenAI at the beginning of the year.
According to Apple, more than 400 former employees now work at OpenAI. As more details emerge, it'll be interesting to find out Apple's reasoning in targeting these specific OpenAI employees, who make up about 10 percent of its former workers who jumped to the AI company.
Wonder if Apple has ever hired similar talent from other companies?
ReplyDeleteYes of course they have and hiring of a few (but key) engineers from another company did not help Apple’s case when Masimo claimed trade secret theft of pulse oximetry (blood oxygen) technology. Apple lost. Details in the OpenAI case will emerge, but given the large number of former employees moved and apparently accessing Apple servers after they left, it is hard to see how OPenAI will emerge as not guilty here.
ReplyDeleteJony is yearning for the simple days @ AAPL, when all he had to worry about was making things thin.
ReplyDeleteHear that humming … ?
ReplyDeleteThat’s the sound of a hundred office shredders, all starting at once. …
if they sent the letters via Apple Mail then the respondents will never get them. Case closed.
ReplyDeleteIf one hasn't before experienced civil litigation–I've been through it 3 times–this is one of those moments in which you find out a lot about yourself.
ReplyDeleteLet them fight…
ReplyDeleteYou mean 10 seconds round 1 lights out for OpenAI?
DeleteSam Altman's hardware is going to fail miserably.
ReplyDeleteHardware is hard.
And designing it, producing it, servicing it, selling it, is a long road.
It is very different from code, you need real world business relationships for starts.
So Apple is now just accusing any ex employee.. man have they got a complex... All Apple is trying to do, as per usual, is come up with bogus lawsuits BS to block the competition to gain market share and consumer trust.
ReplyDeleteIt was OpenAI that started it.
DeleteThey got pi**ed Apple chose Google to power Siri.
So you think they're just sending these to random people with zero evidence?
DeleteYes. This is Apple, they literally tried to argue in a court of law, around the globe, they owned the rights to trade mark exclusively an oblong shape and the colours black and white, to block Samsung devices from sale.
DeleteSo you think Apple designed the SP02 sensor and implemented it in their Apple Watch by themselves and the tech is not stolen from, lets name a company...Masimo?
DeleteOh, such drama. Apple has sent preservation letters (not a lawsuit) to less than a tenth of former Apple employees at one specific company that's notorious for ignoring intellectual property, and you state it's "any ex employee" and they "got a complex". If your neighbors start taking parts off your car and reading your mail you'd do exactly what Apple is doing.
DeleteWell I’m sure the company whose existence is due to theft of other people’s intellectual property would never engage in practices of stealing intellectual property
DeleteYep.
We're just bringing up other random and unrelated lawsuits now? How about something more relevant, like all the other companies and people suing OpenAI for stealing their work. Apple ain't the only one they've stolen from.
DeleteBased on the actual legal filing, they have plenty of actual proof. They were very explicit about it and it’s damning, especially the part where Chang Liu emailed documents to himself and then bragged about it in another email to an Apple employee, WHILE working at OpenAI.
DeleteA completely false (and irrelevant) characterization of that lawsuit. Apple made neither of those claims.
DeleteThat’s a lie. They sued over trade dress, which was the presentation, packaging, and even the advertising of Samsung’s stuff. Why are you parroting a long-debunked pile of BS?
DeleteThis thread is full of this. So many ignorant responses.
DeleteYou’ve reviewed all the documents and there is nothing actionable from former Apple employees?
DeleteYou literally have no clue what you’re talking about.
But… someone said it in a YouTube video I watched once and it fits my idea of what Apple is like so it must be true :O
DeleteThat's not how this works—these letters aren't accusations, they're just notices to preserve documents in case they're needed during discovery.
DeleteBut… someone said it in a YouTube video I watched once and it fits my idea of what Apple is like so it must be true :O
DeleteThat's not how this works—these letters aren't accusations, they're just notices to preserve documents in case they're needed during discovery.
DeleteHypocrite much? Apple using Gemini for its Ai... and how do you think Google trains Gemini huh? They all steal using your logic.
DeleteAlso Apple resoundingly won that lawsuit.
DeleteThese appear to simply be a preservation demands. The equivalent of “you’re on notice, don’t destroy anything, the destruction of that ‘thing’ could be deemed evidence it was not in your favor which might construed as if it was destroyed to help hide the ‘worst’ piece of evidence against you and your employer.”
DeleteTrue, it looks targeted, but I think even if it wasn’t, the nexus between former Apple employee and OpenAI might be sufficient to justify a preserve notice.
DeleteWell that is a patent, those are definitionally public, whether or not Apple sufficiently built something outside the patent is the more accurate question.
DeleteHow do you know? Can you present us with the information /YOU/ have that state that apple does indeed not own any sort of proof? Please share with us we are all very intrigued to know more
DeleteWhat is true and interesting about Apple's early conflict with Android though is that Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple during the iPhone's development, and all of a sudden Google switched direction on Android to copy the iPhone, with predictable results from Steve Jobs.
DeleteI think after that, they may be extra sensitive to this sort of thing. For all Apple's sometimes questionable business practices in this area, they clearly do have a lot of stuff other companies like to steal.
And where have you seen this 'plenty of actual proof' then? Has Apple personally shown it to you? How about you wait till the court case before stating that eh?
DeleteHave YOU? I seriously doubt it. So pot kettle black my friend..
DeleteNo, they hired someone from Massimo who brought over IP to Apple to upgrade their watches with SP02. Its the same thing they are now accusing OpenAI for...
DeleteYou lot (and the 11 downvotes my other post got) are NOT very well informed are you?
Deletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19989750
http://freakonomics.com/2012/08/apple-vs-samsung-who-owns-the-rectangle/
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/14-1335/14-1335-2015-05-18.html
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/580/15-777/
Literally Apples argument, and why it only won in the US and maybe one or two other countries, was that Samsung had copied the oblong shape with round corners of the iPhone and iPad with black or white faces.....
"The claimed surface of the electronic device is illustrated with the color designation for the color black."
USD618677S1 - Electronic device - Google Patents
https://patents.google.com/patent/USD618677S1/en
I suggest you research before replying to posts like my other one...
I think Apple hired away like 20 people. It’s perhaps a little different, Apple at least had the courtesy of starting the discussion by negotiating a business deal.
DeleteI didn't go around saying silly stuff either.
DeleteNot unlikely.
DeleteThey have some cases where they believe they have evidence, these were listed in the lawsuit. Here they order them to preserve material so they can do discovery/go fishing later.
Open AI “uhoh maybe we backstabbed the wrong guy 😳”
ReplyDeleteHow do you even know without your own corporate espionage?
ReplyDeleteOpenAI hired hundreds of people away from Apple. OpenAI is working on hardware products. Apple doesn't need a "spy" to figure this out; they usually just track the data walking out their own front door. Before high-level engineers leave, corporate security teams run digital forensics that flag mass downloads, USB transfers, or emails sent to personal accounts, leaving a 'paper' trail. It's highly likely the former Apple employees receiving these letters (some dozens out of the hundreds who were hired away) left some sort of digital signature that was flagged.
DeleteAlso, Apple works with a tight-knit network of global suppliers; if OpenAI starts ordering custom components that are similar to Apple's manufacturing specifications, those suppliers or matching patent filings will quickly sound the alarm back to Apple. Maybe those count as "spies" but they don't need to be coming from within OpenAI.
Well it's not illegal to hire former employees of another company, especially in California and a lot of previous knowledge lives in someone's very own brain. We used to call it "work experience" and "developed skills" and it's also not illegal to order components. It would be thrown out as coincidental
Delete• It is illegal to ask them to bring confidential prototypes and data.
Delete• It is illegal to hack into company systems in order to steal trade secrets.
• It is illegal to approach suppliers and pretend to be an Apple employee whilst actually an OpenAI one.
Apple's legal team aren't idiots. They know the difference between someone taking a job at a new company and bringing actual hardware and data with them.
I was quoting someone's comment, not Apple or it's Lawyers.
DeleteYour 3rd point isn't proven, is it? And if someone takes information "just in case it helps in your new job" isn't necessarily the problem of the new hiring company either unless they were the ones asking to get it in the first place to get even hired.
A very basic example.
Lets say you worked at company A and you always found the style guide and slide desk templaes very nice and therefore you take a PowerPoint copy if it makes your new job potentially easier at the new company, I doubt any company is going to check the source of your ideas. Instead you will be greeted with a "this is such a great idea!"
Asking interviewees to bring proprietary hardware to interviews for "show and tell" is a false equivalency to the non proprietary "work experience".
DeleteBut did they do that or is Apple just saying they did? Let's see how it plays out in court
DeleteNow monitoring your own corporate network and discovering a breach is “espionage?” Good grief.
DeleteI take it you didn't read the complaint? 🤨
DeleteNone of this is "proven," but lawyers can't just make things up and drop them into complaints.
DeleteEverything after the "unless" is exactly what Apple says OpenAI/Tan/Liu did. Read the complaint before opining on the case.
DeleteAgain, read the complaint—Apple isn't suing over some Keynote templates.
DeleteCalifornia is unique in the US, and fortunate in many ways, but it is not strictly true, just generally true that restrictive covenants are unenforceable or void. However there are paths that might serve the same purpose as a non-competition restrictive covenant, whether it’s a repayment penalty or very narrow non-solicitation covenant but even those are classified as “critically endangered” to “vulnerable.”
DeleteThis is not describing an acquired skill. It could fit quite squarely within a trade secret. Admittedly the benign nature of a stolen PowerPoint makes it possibly trivial. In any case in the very least a company with a power power slide deck worth taking is probably puts the employee in violation of a return of property agreement.
DeleteI did not, should I?
DeleteThat wasn't in response to you, but yeah you should, it's an easy/interesting read.
DeleteHaving worked in a company that was involved with trade secrets theft accusations against a former employee - a list of suppliers can be considered a trade secret. Apple may very well have a case on that issue alone.
DeleteThere are clearly defined exceptions to the ban on restrictive covenants - one is where a company is acquired by another company. Employees who can be classified as key personnel can be prohibited from working for a competitor for one year - the kicker is that the acquiring company can be compelled to pay the employee's wages during that time if they leave.
DeleteMy take on that California law is that Silicon Valley would have not been what it is now without that law.
Are you asking how they know former employees moved or copied information off computers under Apple’s control? The answer seems pretty obvious.
DeleteOh I know, but with such such a long post I wanted to undermine my own statements as not directly related to the particular case. I should have made that more clear, sorry about that.
DeleteI don’t know if even the great state of California has clearly defined exceptions to restrictive covenant, a fine addition all the same.
DeleteWhat I wrote was that there were defined exceptions to the ban on restrictive covenants in California law. Put in another way, California employment law allows restrictive covenants in a few limited cases but prohibitions with respect to working for competitors are otherwise unenforceable in California.
DeleteRight, and your clarification that California recognizes defined, limited exceptions was on topic and appreciated.
DeleteMy original point was indented to be that the practical boundaries of California’s restrictive-covenant prohibition are not always as clear as the general rule may suggest, particularly when courts determine whether a particular arrangement actually restrains someone from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business.
That said, I am not sure the “key personnel” exception you described exists under California law, at least not as a statutory exception. California does appear to recognize an exception such as connected to the sale of a business. Although that strikes me as materially different from enforcing a one-year noncompete on a key personnel. Nor am I aware of a California rule generally requiring the acquiring company to continue paying that employee’s wages during the restricted period. That sounds more like a garden-leave rule from another jurisdiction or a contractual obligation.
I believe my original post stated that the "key personnel" exception was in respect to the sale of a business. My introduction to this clause was about 30 years ago when the company that I worked for was bought by another company. With respect to this thread, I seriously doubt that any of the 400 ex-Apple employees were subject to a non-compete restriction. On the other hand, I would be very surprised if those 400 were not subject to non disclosure agreements.
DeleteThen it sounds like we’re mostly on the same page, and it is my mistake that the distinction wasn’t clear in my original response to your message.
DeleteIt read to me in your first post that you conflated two ideas, employees and owners who work. The exception doesn’t appear to exist for non-owner employees in connection with a sale. I think we are saying the same thing?
In your instance, under today’s framework, it might be that enforceability of the restriction may have depended on whether the you were selling an interest, rather than being ‘key’ employees.
That's my impression as well.
DeleteMy comments come from the experience of a company being bought and the "key personnel" bit was one of the things of discussion amongst my co-workers and I. IIRC, the definition of a "key personnel" was limited to management or a techie with a unique understanding of the technology.
The underlying principle of the California law is that no company can prevent a former employee from earning a living. On the other hand, the employees do have to honor agreements regarding trade secrets.
It must be very difficult to tread that fine line - say I was a tech / car guy at Mercedes then transferred to Porsche - surely just even knowledge I have built up is close to a trade secret ?
ReplyDeleteIt can be a fine line, but the conduct that Apple is suing over is about as clear a case as I've ever seen.
DeleteSome industries are easier to identify the line than others. Most people do really know when they are using trade secrets or industry knowledge. So knowledge you’ve built up that is immediately transferable to Porsche as common language is probably not a trade secret, whereas knowledge that is known only to Mercedes is almost certainly trade secret. The area between, when in doubt, ask Mercedes and Porsches general counsel.
DeleteScam Altman and his cash incinerating business model of a company will be bankrupt before this is finalized
ReplyDeleteLooks like it will be a long battle. Waiting to see what will happen.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t OpenAI the sole reason for all this memory shortage chaos and all at the hands of them stealing Apple’s trade secrets? I am heart broken how insanely expensive information technology has gotten because of AI.
ReplyDeleteRemember when OpenAI was a non-profit and took everyone's money and now are PBC... bet they go IPO in 2027.
ReplyDeleteIt's Google "Don't be Evil" all over again.
So what if Jonny Ive states that he was the one that came up with the design (Which I'm sure is the reason he is there - Design) Are Apple going to say his design is not his own?
ReplyDeleteYes, because when you work for a company and produce things, the results belong to the company. That’s why you are paid to be there. It’s a mystery why that’s not crystal clear to you. That’s one of the most basic tenets of business and employment.
DeleteLet's just think about this logically for a moment.
DeleteYou work at company A for 10 years, you then move to company B, and you are supposed to pretend that yu forgot everything and anything you learned during your tie at company A
That's how people move on, by bringing their knowledge and learned expertise to a new company.
You cannot expect people to pretend they know nothing and need training from scratch whenever they move jobs.
I mean, why would I hire you if you are going to pretend to me that you know nothing.
If he designed it while employed by Apple using Apple's resources, the design 100% belongs to Apple. Even designs Apple never uses still belongs to Apple. If he designed after hours as a pet project and then Apple decides to use it, then the design rights still belongs to Jonny unless he sold the rights to Apple.
DeleteThis is why I don't enter photo contests. Too many of them have fine print that states photos entered into the contest becomes their copyrighted material. F that! The legit contests that don't try to steal your copyright, well, the competition is way above my level.
How can anyone prove that.
DeleteSo you saw a "thing" and you design something new.
It's impossible to say that "thing" you saw did not influence your design.
Now it's getting juicy! Keep up the blunt force drama, Apple!
ReplyDeleteHope the lawsuit is settled before AI becomes a commodity.
ReplyDeleteDid Jony Ive find something in the mail?
ReplyDeleteWhen Apple turns their legal cannons on you, that can't be a comfortable feeling.
ReplyDeleteScam Altman vs. Tim Crook AMIRITE PEOP--oh never mind.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought....
ReplyDeleteHow about we let the companies create their products, and let the public decide if they's like to buy them or not.
The product the pubic love the most and buy the most will be the winner.
While OpenAI can hire anyone they want (Apple and others were sued and lost for colluding on not hiring each others employees), you also figured something is up when OpenAI poached almost every single one of Apple's AI employees.
ReplyDeleteNone of this is "proven," but lawyers can't just make things up and drop them into complaints.
ReplyDeleteEverything after the "unless" is exactly what Apple says OpenAI/Tan/Liu did. Read the complaint before opining on the case.
Again, read the complaint—Apple isn't suing over some Keynote templates.
So I get it, you are siding with Apple. Just because Apple assumed they did it, doesn't mean they actually did until proven guilty.
DeleteSomeone claimed I hit their car once but I didn't. Thankfully, the charges were dropped eventually.
Again, have you read the complaint? Because it references plenty of hard evidence to back up every allegation. Obviously—as I very clearly said—none of it is "proven," but the fact that attorneys signed onto these allegations means they've seen enough evidence to support them.
DeleteAlso, "[innocent] until proven guilty" applies in the criminal context; in the civil context, parties are found liable/not liable and the standard of proof is much lower.
apple hasn't had an AI play for years, and sat on SIRI way too long. Open AI, Claude, and others outpaced Apple and took the lead in this along with Google and others. Apple now trying the legal battle to climb their way back, but still don't have a strong enough product to compete in anyway
ReplyDeleteWhat if someone doesn't preserve relevant documents? 🤷♂️
ReplyDeleteThat someone may face a metric buttload of legal problems, which may lead to fines and/or jail time. The courts could stipulate that the destruction of documents was an admission of guilt.
DeleteHow would they know which specific documents were not preserved and that they had never seen before, and how would they know whether they were accidentally lost before this notification or destroyed after it?
DeleteThey wouldn't. This is two companies who had a partnership gone south and they want to sue the heck out of each other.
DeleteBecause, generally speaking, every document is possessed by multiple people. So unless every party to an email, eg, agrees to delete it, it’ll be obvious something is missing. Also produced documents will oftentimes reference other document(s), and/or people involved will know something exists and will be looking for it.
DeleteThis happens literally every day in litigation, you guys aren’t the first to think of it.
Criminals don't even get put in jail these days.
ReplyDeleteThe US has by far the largest prison population of any country on Earth, both in absolute numbers and per capita. 😑
DeleteChina would have more but they kill people before they even become inmates.
DeleteApple please get them all working for Scam Altman!
ReplyDeleteAs Apple is basically the richest most valuable company in the world, and such a wonderful place to work, where you get amazingly rewarded for your work.
ReplyDeleteIt must make you wonder how Open AI was able to hire away around 400 Apple employees to work for them instead.
Now, I can imagine the odd one or two people not being THAT loyal to Apple as an employer, but 400 !!!
There must be something seriously wrong or bad at Apple for 400 people to want to get away and join Open AI.
Or maybe a company that's not worried about making money (yet) was willing to offer enormous salaries to people. Would you stick with a company, even one you liked, if another company came up to you and offered you a lot more money to work for them?
DeleteOnce you are at a World Leading very very rich company does money really matter THAT much to most people?
DeleteIsn't you enjoying your job (job satisfaction) / how you are being treated / The satisfaction from working on the projects you are enjoying to be spending the majority of your waking hours on more important?
If you are in a low paying job, then sure, you will often "Jump ship" simply to get more money as money is the only reason you are there. Not because you enjoy it.
But working at Apple. I must assume these people are getting paid very very well already, so some more money is not the main reason to move.
You'd need to be unhappy in your role, frustrated, feeling you are not progressing, or not working on projects you enjoy or feel are advancing yourself as a person are going to be vastly more reasons to want to leave your safe Apple job.
Again, sure. I can accept there will be the odd few who don't care about their job / are not interested and are simply there for the money, and nothing else in their life or about the job interests them.
But over 400 people? They can't all only be interested in more money.
IIRC, Apple was one of the Silicon Valley companies that were defendants in a lawsuit accusing said companies of an illegal collaboration to suppress wages.
DeleteI honestly do not know all details, but I was aware that Apple REALLY does not like Unions in it's Apple stores and I suppose I presumed their payment "issues" were more related to store employees as opposed to the kind of high up people that others including Open AI would be looking to hire for their knowledge and expertiese.
DeleteIt certainly didn’t help that one of the employees openAI hired away held on to his work laptop long after he was required to return it, and continued to use it to access sensitive company files.
ReplyDeleteThey definitely handed the opportunity for a lawsuit to Apple on a platter. I don’t think openAI is coming out of this one unscathed.
Mornings in Cupertino Have the Aroma of Napalm Once Again
https://daringfireball.net/2026/07/mornings_in_cupertino_have_the_aroma_of_napalm_once_again
I think maybe John Ternus is more of a “*Hey, what* would *Steve have done here?*” kind of guy. What would Steve Jobs do with this OpenAI situation? He’d go to war.
daringfireball.net daringfireball.net
It also seems like this lawsuit is being initiated at the behest of the new CEO, John Ternus (it doesn't make sense for an outgoing CEO to start a fight his predecessor has no interest in continuing). For those thinking that Ternus will be some "nice guy" CEO who will magically right all the "wrongs" brought about by Tim Cook, I feel like they will be in for a rude shock.
Steve Jobs’s oft-cited parting advice to Tim Cook
https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-tim-cook-advice-john-ternus-steve-jobs-2934ed33?st=cuJyaF
was “Don’t ask what I would do. Just do the right thing.” Cook has largely lived by that mantra. But maybe — maybe — by taking that advice to heart, he has at times deliberately steered the company in ways Jobs would not have, just for the sake of steering it in a different way. I think maybe John Ternus is more of a “Hey, what would Steve have done here?” kind of guy.
On the one hand, this lawsuit is a bad look for Apple. It could be perceived that Apple does not think their employees are free to leave and compete against them. On the other hand, Apple could use a booster shot of Steve Jobs’s “us against the world” attitude. It might be wrong to start a war, but it’s never wrong to finish one after being attacked.
A leader who is even more fiery, more "thermonuclear" and more antagonistic than Tim Cook? At this time? Be careful of what you people wished for; you just might get it.