Apple asked a U.S. judge on August 4 for a preliminary injunction barring two former employees and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing its confidential trade secret information, escalating a lawsuit filed last month that accused former senior system electrical engineer Chang Liu and former VP Tang Yew Tan of sharing proprietary data with the AI company (Reuters).

The injunction request, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, targets devices OpenAI is developing that Apple suspects are based on its technology. A concurrent motion for expedited discovery asks the court to compel the defendants to produce documents relating to their alleged conduct (Claims Journal; QZ). Apple filed the underlying trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI and the two former employees in July 2026 (QZ).

Apple now says an internal investigation has identified 11 additional former employees who may have witnessed or participated in the suspected misconduct, broadening the scope well beyond the two original defendants (Engadget). The company's filings describe several specific instances. One former employee allegedly met with Chang Liu ahead of an interview at OpenAI and discussed Apple proprietary information relating to unannounced products. Another former employee allegedly took screenshots of confidential Apple documents about an unannounced product before an interview at OpenAI. Multiple former Apple employees now at OpenAI also reportedly reached out to discuss returning Apple-issued work devices they had kept when they left the company (Engadget).

OpenAI has pushed back forcefully. In a statement, the company said Apple's request for a preliminary injunction is "both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets" (Engadget). OpenAI also published text messages involving Chang Liu that appear to show Apple employees contacting him after his departure asking for the location of certain files. OpenAI characterized those messages as evidence of Apple "failing to properly manage system access when people leave" (Engadget).

The dispute centers on hardware. Rumors have circulated that OpenAI is developing an AI-enabled smart speaker with former Apple design head Jony Ive, and OpenAI's $6.5 billion acquisition of Ive's startup, io Products, is directly entangled in the litigation. io Products has been named as a co-defendant in Apple's lawsuit (Engadget). The preliminary injunction Apple seeks would, if granted, halt OpenAI from developing devices suspected of being based on Apple's technology, potentially affecting the io Products hardware pipeline.

The competing narratives are worth flagging because they frame the case differently at a structural level. Apple's theory is that former employees systematically carried proprietary knowledge about unannounced hardware to OpenAI, and that the io Products acquisition served as a vehicle for that transfer. OpenAI's counter-narrative is narrower and procedural: that whatever information may have circulated was a consequence of Apple's own offboarding failures, not deliberate exfiltration. The text messages OpenAI published are designed to support that second framing by showing Apple employees, not Liu, initiating contact about file locations after his departure.

A preliminary injunction is an aggressive remedy. Courts grant them only when a plaintiff can demonstrate both a likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable harm that monetary damages cannot remedy. Apple's burden is to convince the court that its trade secrets are actively at risk and that the harm from continued use or disclosure cannot be undone after a full trial. The expedited discovery motion signals urgency on Apple's part; it wants document production fast enough to support the injunction hearing itself, not just the eventual trial.

The involvement of 11 additional potential witnesses, if Apple's investigation holds up under scrutiny, could expand the factual record substantially. It also raises the practical question of how many former Apple hardware engineers now work at OpenAI or io Products, and what the boundary looks like between general engineering expertise acquired over years at Apple and specific, protected trade secrets about unannounced products.

OpenAI's argument about offboarding procedure is not without precedent as a litigation strategy. In trade secrets cases, defendants frequently argue that information a plaintiff failed to safeguard adequately cannot be protected after the fact. Whether Apple's internal investigation and the specific allegations about screenshots and pre-interview document sharing will be enough to overcome that defense is a question the court will need to resolve at the injunction stage, likely in the coming weeks.

The stakes extend beyond the two named defendants. If the injunction is granted, it could constrain OpenAI's hardware development pipeline at a time when the company is reportedly building its first consumer device. If it is denied, Apple's leverage in the broader litigation narrows, and the case proceeds to standard discovery timelines without the immediate leverage a injunction would provide.