Apple has taken the battle to court. According to Gelonghui on August 4, Apple has filed a preliminary injunction request with a U.S. judge, asking the court to directly prohibit two former employees and OpenAI from accessing, obtaining, using, or disclosing so-called confidential information. Meanwhile, this trade secret lawsuit continues to progress.
The trigger came last month: Apple formally sued OpenAI and two former employees who are now working at OpenAI, accusing them of stealing Apple's trade secrets to help OpenAI enter the consumer hardware market. This lawsuit has pushed the previously under-the-surface tension between the two companies into the open, abruptly escalating the confrontation. Now applying for a preliminary injunction means Apple does not want to wait for the long trial process to conclude, but instead wants to legally restrain the other party's actions—welding shut the possible leak of confidential information before the case is resolved.
