Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last month, accusing the firm behind ChatGPT of stealing trade secrets related to hardware development. Nearly a month later, OpenAI has published a detailed response to many of Apple’s claims in the form of a blog post.
For background, here’s a quick timeline of events:
- July 10: Apple sues OpenAI, accusing former Apple employees of systematically stealing Apple trade secrets to benefit future OpenAI hardware
- July 10: OpenAI responded with a brief statement: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”
- July 14: OpenAI provides an updated response, saying it has seen no evidence supporting Apple’s claims.
And that brings us to August 4, when OpenAI published a blog post overnight that finally goes into more detail. You can read it in full here.
The post is under the title “Apple is getting this wrong” and signed by OpenAI.
OpenAI’s latest response starts by characterizing the lawsuit as “careless, aggressive, and oddly personal”:
Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time, and built a reputation for obsessing over the smallest details. This careless, aggressive and oddly personal lawsuit sadly doesn’t live up to that reputation.
Next, OpenAI seems to suggest that they were not properly notified about the issue before the lawsuit, including details that have been reported before today:
Apple had claimed that they contacted OpenAI in February and that we didn’t respond. They now admit that their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names—only after we brought this to their attention. Apple also claimed they had a discussion with our General Counsel, which they now concede never happened. But they again hide the fact that they never raised the specific allegations in this lawsuit at that time, and that they in fact told us that they were “resolving any issues”. We then heard nothing for five months until they sued.
They go on to provide email correspondence that can be viewed on the web page.
Next, the response finally acknowledges some of the data access issues raised by Apple:
Apple accuses Chang Liu of accessing Apple confidential information after leaving the company, but only now admits that Apple employees reached out to him and asked for his help to locate this information (you can read the messages here). Apple now tries to shift the blame to “residual access”, but they also don’t disclose that this is a common issue with Apple which is caused by them failing to properly manage system access when people leave. What that means in practice is that former employees who are trying to do the right thing when they leave still have access to Apple files—despite not wanting them or even being aware of them.
If you’ve read Apple’s original lawsuit, you’ll know that Tang Tan is a major focus of the complaint. OpenAI’s response tonight defends Tan:
Apple also accuses Tang Tan of trying to get and use their trade secrets. However, Tang has always been clear with the team that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies. Tang served Apple for more than 24 years and was widely known as one of the most innovative leaders at the company.
The rest of the response includes just two more paragraphs before shifting to email and iMessage screenshots. This is the conclusion:
We wish Apple had raised these issues with us before they filed their lawsuit and would have been happy to clarify all of this with them. We have taken the allegations in the lawsuit seriously and offered to work with Apple to resolve this. Instead, they’re trying to change their narrative, including by making vague accusations about other former employees, and will likely keep repeating this tactic.
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. We’re much more interested in building innovative products and technologies that push the frontier.
So there we have it for now. It’s not a legal response, but it’s more than OpenAI has said (or shown) in the three and a half weeks since Apple’s initial lawsuit.
Again, you can read the new response from OpenAI here, and catch up on Apple’s original complaint here.
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