Analysis
OpenAI asked a federal judge on Wednesday to dismiss Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit, arguing in a 31-page filing that Apple failed to adequately describe what it claims as protected trade secrets and didn't plausibly allege misappropriation by OpenAI or the two former Apple employees named in the case, according to Bloomberg and TechCrunch. It's the most substantive move in the case since Apple filed suit July 10, alleging former iPhone engineer Chang Liu accessed confidential hardware files for weeks after joining OpenAI's device team, and since OpenAI's initial public rebuttal in early August.
What's new here is the legal argument itself, not just another denial. OpenAI's motion turns Apple's own security posture into its defense: the filing argues Apple's policy of letting employees route work through personal iCloud accounts blurred the line between corporate and personal data, and that a credential gap created by Apple's own systems -- not any OpenAI action -- let Liu keep reaching Apple's servers after he left. OpenAI also argues Apple reviewed personal iMessages left on company devices in building its case, a detail aimed at undercutting Apple's own evidence-gathering as much as its legal theory.
“What's new here is the legal argument itself, not just another denial.”
The case now runs on two clocks. OpenAI has until August 17 to formally respond to Apple's separate request for a preliminary injunction blocking the two former employees and OpenAI from using any disputed information while the suit proceeds, and the full hearing on that injunction is set for October 1 in San Jose federal court. A judge ruling on the motion to dismiss before then could reshape or end the case entirely; a ruling after would leave the injunction fight to play out on the original timeline regardless.
OpenAI's tone matches its legal position: the company has called the suit a baseless and pretextual attempt by Apple to cover for its own struggles retaining AI talent and shipping AI features, a framing Apple has not directly answered in public statements so far. The risk for OpenAI is that a judge reads the same iCloud-policy argument as a technicality rather than a defense; whether that happens remains to be seen, and neither side's framing has been tested in court yet.
