Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
The lawsuit names Chang Liu and Tang Tan as two of the defendants.
Tang Tan served as VP of product design at Apple, leading iPhone
and Apple Watch product design. He departed the company in
February 2024 to work with Jony Ive. Chang Liu, meanwhile, worked
at Apple for eight years and was a senior system electrical
engineer before departing to join OpenAI in January 2026.
Apple’s lawsuit also names OpenAI and io Products as defendants.
OpenAI’s hardware efforts are being led by Jony Ive, Apple’s
former chief design officer. OpenAI acquired Ive’s startup io
as part of a $6.5 billion deal last year. OpenAI’s takeover of
the company included more than 50 engineers, developers, and
other employees. In its original announcement, OpenAI touted
that Ive founded io in collaboration with Scott Cannon, Evans
Hankey, and Tan.
Hankey led Apple’s design team for several years after Ive
departed the company. She departed in 2022 before reuniting with
Ive as part of io. Cannon also previously worked at Apple.
Ive, Hankey, and Cannon are not personally mentioned anywhere in
Apple’s initial filing today.
Here’s a copy of Apple’s complaint I’m hosting. You should read the complaint to form your own opinion on the allegations. The complaint goes so far out of its way to avoid mentioning Ive or Hankey by name that it describes io’s founding thus, on page 4 (italics added):
OpenAI and its cohorts have been engaging in a coordinated pattern
of misconduct at an institutional level as well. This includes io
(which OpenAI acquired), a venture co-founded by Mr. Tan and
other former Apple leaders. The Corporate Defendants, with or
through their employees or partners, have been acting in concert
and as an enterprise, exploiting Apple’s confidential information
to advance OpenAI’s efforts to enter the consumer hardware market.
They have used confidential Apple information in approaching
Apple’s trusted partners, even having one carry out a specific
trade secret metal-finishing technique for OpenAI, misleading the
partner to believe they had Apple’s permission to do so.
This is the tip of the iceberg. Apple lacks visibility into what’s
been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such
misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership. This much
is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical
Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with
business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets
and confidential information. As a natural result, OpenAI’s
nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of
foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on
misappropriated trade secrets.
Footnote 13 on p. 15 states:
Apple and OpenAI have a commercial relationship involving the
integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence. The
companies have entered into a written agreement governing that
integration. That agreement is not at issue here. OpenAI’s acts of
trade secret misappropriation alleged herein do not arise from and
have no connection to that agreement.
Be that as it may legally speaking, in practical terms it seems untenable for that Apple Intelligence partnership to continue after this.
See also: Techmeme’s roundup.