Apple Sues OpenAI Alleging Trade Secret Theft ⇥ cnbc.com

Kif Leswing and MacKenzie Sigalos, CNBC:

Apple on Friday sued OpenAI in federal court in Northern California, alleging trade secret theft, saying that the artificial intelligence lab took the iPhone maker’s intellectual property in order to develop its own consumer hardware.

The docket is on CourtListener, along with Apple’s complaint (PDF). What is immediately notable about this whole thing is the myriad conflicts of interest. Apple, of course, has a current partnership with OpenAI to power Apple Intelligence features, something repeatedly mentioned on the previous version of its marketing webpage, and conspicuously absent on the current one.

But the history runs far deeper. Among the defendants in the suit is io Products — do not blame me for that capitalization choice — founded by Jony Ive and acquired by OpenAI last May. Total mentions of “Ive” in the body of this lawsuit? Zero. Also, one of the investors in Ive’s company was Emerson Collective, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, and which now has equity in OpenAI. Neither Emerson nor Powell Jobs are defendants.

In May, Kalley Huang of the New York Times reported OpenAI was “weighing legal action such as sending Apple a notice claiming breach of contract” because it felt Apple was not doing enough to promote ChatGPT through its Apple Intelligence integration. I would be surprised if that modest tie-in exists for much longer. When you update to Siri A.I. in iOS 27, for example, ChatGPT is turned off by default, though it is possible to re-enable it. It is also listed in Settings under an “Extension” sub-section — currently singular, though perhaps not at some point in the future.