Apple Says OpenAI Stole Trade Secrets. That Sounds Familiar.

Cue the tiny violins; somebody could have stolen one thing from Apple.

It is a sorry story, however one the tech large is aware of very effectively. Possibly too effectively.

Apple’s blockbuster lawsuit towards OpenAI accuses the ChatGPT maker of orchestrating a marketing campaign to recruit Apple engineers, extract confidential information, and use the corporate’s commerce secrets and techniques to jump-start its personal {hardware} ambitions.

The allegations are placing. They’re additionally acquainted.

Over time, Apple has itself confronted lawsuits from firms accusing it of utilizing remarkably comparable ways: recruiting away key staff after which utilizing their data to construct competing merchandise.

Masimo’s grievance

One of the vital instances got here from the medical device maker Masimo. In a lawsuit filed in 2020, Masimo alleged that Apple first explored a partnership earlier than hiring away a number of of its high executives and engineers, together with specialists in pulse oximetry expertise.

Masimo stated Apple used confidential know-how gained by way of these hires to develop the blood oxygen sensor within the Apple Watch. Apple denied stealing commerce secrets and techniques, arguing it merely employed proficient folks and developed its expertise independently.

The dispute finally expanded into a number of trade-secret and patent instances, in addition to an Worldwide Commerce Fee investigation.

A separate patent infringement allegation by Masimo towards Apple led to an Apple Watch import ban in 2023. In 2025, a federal jury dominated that Apple had infringed Masimo patents and ordered the tech large to pay $634 million. The ban was overturned.

The A123 case

Years earlier, battery maker A123 Systems made comparable accusations. A123 alleged that Apple systematically recruited members of its superior battery workforce, together with its former chief expertise officer, and benefited from confidential battery analysis.

Apple denied wrongdoing, and the case settled earlier than reaching trial.

Neither case produced a definitive judicial discovering that Apple stole one other firm’s commerce secrets and techniques. Collectively, they illustrate a recurring sample in Silicon Valley: Firms typically accuse rivals of crossing the road between hiring proficient staff and buying confidential know-how.

In California, particularly, staff are free to depart their employers every time they like and work wherever else they please. For Massive Tech firms, that is not all the time nice, as a result of — by definition — these specialists go away with precious know-how. That is the entire motive they’re employed away.

How or when this crosses over into commerce secret theft is murky enterprise, certainly.

A secret pact

Apple has famously exhibited its dislike of free-flowing expertise motion throughout Silicon Valley. Within the 2000s, it entered right into a secret pact with 5 different tech giants, together with Google and Intel, that prevented the businesses from instantly soliciting one another’s staff, in keeping with a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

The businesses paid greater than $400 million to settle a category motion case stemming from the scandal, The New York Times reported.

The massive kahuna

With that choice out the window, Apple staff have been freer to maneuver round. In 2019, Apple’s most well-known worker, iPhone designer Jony Ive, did simply that — and began his personal firm referred to as io Merchandise with different former Apple staff.

Final yr, OpenAI acquired io and introduced on Ive and his workforce, together with cofounder Tang Tan. Collectively, they’re creating a client gadget which will problem the iPhone and can for positive be higher at AI than Apple devices — a low bar, however extremely possible.

Within the 40 pages of Apple’s lawsuit towards OpenAI, there’s not a single reference to Ive apart from a few URLs in footnotes which have the phrase “jony.”

That appears odd. In the event you have been going to accuse one other firm of hiring away your high execs and utilizing their data of your commerce secrets and techniques, would not you point out the large kahuna?

There are a number of different former Apple staff who went to io, or left Apple instantly, and now work at OpenAI. In Apple’s lawsuit, it mentions two: Tang Tan, an io cofounder, and Chang Liu.

A large beneath stress

So what is going on on right here? My interpretation is that it is a uncommon instance of a Silicon Valley tech large being challenged at its personal sport by a well-funded and succesful upstart with disruptive new expertise.

When Massive Tech firms really feel safe, they typically recruit aggressively from smaller rivals who complain that their concepts or experience have been appropriated. When those self same tech giants discover themselves beneath stress from an formidable newcomer, they all of a sudden change into fierce defenders of commerce secrets and techniques and confidential info.

So Apple in all probability went digging to see what it may discover. Thus far, it is provide you with a few former staff who could have taken some concepts with them to OpenAI.

Are these actions commerce secret theft, or good staff exercising their proper to work the place they please and taking their data with them? That is what Apple argued within the Masimo case.

Whether or not Apple’s allegations towards OpenAI show true might be determined in court docket. The dispute underscores a well-recognized actuality within the expertise trade: Immediately’s plaintiff is commonly yesterday’s defendant.

Join BI’s Tech Memo publication here. Attain out to me by way of e-mail at abarr@businessinsider.com.