Apple has beefed up its trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, and this time it says it has hardware to back up the claim.
According to a report from Engadget, Apple has added new allegations to its existing lawsuit, centered on a laptop that the company says proves a former employee accessed and used proprietary files after moving to OpenAI. The filing does not name the employee or detail what the files contained, but the laptop is being presented as physical evidence rather than a circumstantial claim. This follows Apple's original suit accusing OpenAI of benefiting from stolen trade secrets.
This is a case worth watching regardless of how it lands. Big tech firms lose employees to AI labs constantly, and lawsuits over what those employees carried out the door with them are becoming a predictable byproduct of the AI hiring boom. A specific piece of hardware as evidence, rather than just an allegation about know-how, raises the stakes and makes the case harder to dismiss or settle quietly.
Expect OpenAI to contest the laptop's relevance before this goes any further. Trade secrets suits like this one tend to hinge less on the splashy accusation and more on what a judge decides actually counts as proprietary.