Apple has asked a court for expedited discovery and a preliminary injunction in its trade secrets case against OpenAI, alleging more former employees may have shared confidential information, according to TechCrunch.
The injunction request seeks to stop OpenAI from developing any devices that Apple suspects are based on its technology while the case proceeds.
In a recent court filing, Apple said an internal investigation identified 11 additional former employees who may have witnessed or been directly involved in the alleged misconduct.
Apple had already accused former senior system electrical engineer Chang Liu and former vice president Tang Yew Tan of sharing trade secrets with OpenAI. Apple said in the filing that one former employee met Liu before an interview at OpenAI and discussed proprietary information related to unannounced Apple products.
The filing also alleged that another former Apple employee took screenshots of confidential Apple documents related to an unannounced product before interviewing at OpenAI.
Apple further said that multiple former employees now working at OpenAI contacted the company about returning Apple-issued work devices they had kept after leaving.
Before Apple’s latest filing, OpenAI said the preliminary injunction request was “both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.”
OpenAI also published text messages involving Liu that it said showed Apple employees contacted him after he left the company to ask where certain files were located. OpenAI said those messages showed Apple had failed to properly manage system access when employees left. The company has not publicly responded to Apple’s latest filing seeking expedited discovery.
The lawsuit comes as OpenAI has faced reports that it is developing an AI-enabled smart speaker with former Apple designer Jony Ive. OpenAI recently bought Ive’s startup, io Products, for $6.5 billion, and that company has been named as a co-defendant in the case.
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