OpenAI went public with private chats to dispute Apple's trade secret theft lawsuit

Apple has some serious allegations against the AI startup OpenAI, accusing it of stealing confidential trade secrets through former employees. Now, OpenAI has shared a public blog post rejecting the allegations and releasing internal emails and chat messages that it says refute Apple's allegations.

“We do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets,” OpenAI said. The company also said that Apple is making “vague accusations” and that it is “trying to change their narrative.”

Must read: Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft: What happened and why it matters

Apple’s trade secret theft accusations

Previously, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that more than 400 of its former employees who now work at OpenAI may have taken Apple's confidential trade secrets after joining the company.

Apple also said that it contacted OpenAI in February to inform it was conducting an internal investigation into the possible theft of trade secrets. According to Apple, OpenAI did not respond to that communication.
    
OpenAI response to allegations 

OpenAI in the blog post claims that Apple's lawsuit contains factual inaccuracies, including an assertion that Apple had discussed the matter with OpenAI's General Counsel. According to OpenAI, that conversation never took place, and Apple later acknowledged the mistake in court filings.

The company said that Apple also admitted that “their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names—only after we brought this to their attention.”  It also highlighted that Apple “never raised the specific allegations in this lawsuit at that time” or “in fact told us that they were ‘resolving any issues’. We then heard nothing for five months until they sued.”

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The company also claims former Apple employees, now working at OpenAI, did not take trade secrets, and it has strict policies prohibiting the use of another company's proprietary data. OpenAI also released internal emails and iMessage conversations involving former Apple engineer Chang Liu, revealing that Apple employees reached out to him “and asked for his help to locate this information,” OpenAI said.