The ongoing Apple-OpenAI lawsuit of alleged trade secrets theft continues, with OpenAI today filing to have the case dismissed by the judge. OpenAI said Apple’s complaint was “filed without adequate investigation” and framed “ordinary conduct” out of context.
Apple is currently pressing for a preliminary injunction, which will be heard in court on October 1. The larger case could take years to resolve.
In the motion to dismiss, OpenAI is attempting to have the whole thing thrown out early. It argues that Apple failed to meet the legal standard of presenting that it has tangible trade secrets, or that Apple failed to plausibly allege any improper conduct.
It says that Apple’s examples of former employees discussing confidential information was mischaracterised. It references iMessage conversations that it also posted on its website earlier this week.
OpenAI say these messages show that Chang Liu, one of the people named in the original suit, was asked by Apple employees to retrieve information, not that he was doing so for OpenAI’s benefit. It says Apple “does not allege that Mr. Liu ever disclosed a file to OpenAI or used one in OpenAI’s hardware work”.
Similarly, the motion to dismiss addresses Apple’s comments that former-Apple VP Tang Tan retained a document describing Apple’s offboarding procedures.
Apple alleged this document was used by Tan to aid evading various security checks when recruiting Apple employees. In OpenAI’s motion today, it frames it in the opposite fashion: suggesting that Tan used this information to ensure that any new employees he hired strictly followed Apple’s offboarding process to ensure that there was no chance of misconduct.
Of course, all of this legalese is par for the course. We don’t know yet if OpenAI’s arguments meet the required legal standard for dismissal, but we aren’t surprised they are trying to get the complaint thrown out. That is the job of attorneys.
At least right now, neither OpenAI nor Apple seem keen to settle the case. The next big milestone in proceedings will be the preliminary injunction hearing on October 1st.
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Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.
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