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Apple wins early access to OpenAI documents and employee testimony in trade secrets lawsuit
Judge Edward Davila today granted some of Apple’s requests for expedited discovery in its trade secrets lawsuit against former employees, OpenAI, and io Products. Here are the details.
A few months ago, Apple filed a trade secrets misappropriation lawsuit against two former employees (Chang Liu and Tang Tan), OpenAI, and io Products.
In a nutshell, Apple says Liu and Tan improperly accessed or used confidential information about its products and technologies to help advance OpenAI’s consumer hardware development efforts. Apple also accuses the defendants of improperly obtaining information from other Apple employees during recruitment interviews.
You can read more about Apple’s original filing here.
As part of the lawsuit, Apple asked Judge Edward Davila to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from further embedding the alleged trade secrets in their hardware development while the case plays out.
Apple also requested expedited discovery, seeking early access to internal documents, forensic evidence, and testimony from OpenAI employees to better understand the extent of the alleged misappropriation and support its injunction request.
OpenAI opposed the motion, arguing that Apple’s demands were overly broad and that expedited discovery was unnecessary given that the regular process was about to begin.
In a decision issued today, Judge Davila granted most of Apple’s requests, while rejecting others and postponing a decision on those he considered overly broad.
That includes ordering the defendants to turn over several categories of documents and evidence, including:
Additionally, Judge Davila authorized Apple to depose Liu, Tan, and Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, as well as corporate representatives from OpenAI and io Products.