Apple gets OpenAI interview records in trade-secrets case

What the order covers

The materials may include interview checklists, guides, instructions, handbooks and scripts, as well as technical presentations and records showing whether Apple technologies or components were discussed.

OpenAI has five days to provide documents it has already collected and 14 days to provide the remaining materials covered by the request. Judge Edward Davila agreed with Apple that this part of discovery should move quickly.

The judge also allowed Apple to obtain LINE messages between people named in the suit, including OpenAI employees Chang Liu and Elissa Peng. He approved depositions under oath of Liu, Peng and OpenAI hardware director Tang Yu Tan. All three previously worked at Apple.

What Apple alleges — and did not get

Apple sued OpenAI in July, alleging a systematic appropriation of trade secrets. The company says former employees used Apple laptops to download confidential material, including specifications, engineering presentations and files on unannounced technologies, features and products. Apple also claims that former employees already at OpenAI advised colleagues leaving Apple on what information to bring to interviews.

Davila did not grant Apple’s broader requests for expedited access to OpenAI documents and correspondence. He rejected fast-track access to research in areas including metal finishing and power management, as well as broader requests for hardware research and information about the work former Apple employees did after joining OpenAI. Apple can narrow those requests and file them again.

OpenAI is developing a consumer device that could eventually compete with the iPhone or smartphones more broadly if it becomes central to users’ everyday lives and their interactions with software and services. That possibility gives the hiring records significance beyond the immediate allegations: they may help Apple examine how OpenAI staffed a hardware effort that could put the companies in direct competition.

The gap in the case

I think the order is notable for what it does not yet expose. Apple gets a focused set of interview materials and messages, not a broad window into OpenAI’s hardware research. That makes the interviews a proxy for a harder question: whether confidential Apple knowledge shaped OpenAI’s work, rather than merely appearing in conversations around hiring.

The judge’s refusal is not final, and Apple can try again with narrower requests. For now, the case turns on whether interview records can establish a connection between what former employees knew and what OpenAI is building.