OpenAI says Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit is ‘rotten to its core’

OpenAI just filed a motion to dismiss Apple's blockbuster trade secret lawsuit, and they're not pulling punches. The AI company is calling Apple's claims "rotten to its core" and arguing that what Apple calls theft is really just normal employee mobility in tech, according to The Verge.

The core dispute comes down to what counts as a trade secret. OpenAI argues that Apple is trying to rebrand generic product development information as protected intellectual property. More importantly, they claim Apple never took reasonable steps to actually keep this information secret, which is a legal requirement for trade secret protection. If a company doesn't actively protect something as confidential, courts generally won't either.

This case highlights a tension that's been building in AI. As the industry grows explosively, talent is moving between companies at a rapid pace. Apple hired aggressively from Google and others to build its AI capabilities. Now that former Apple engineers have joined OpenAI, Apple is crying foul. But OpenAI's argument is that you can't have it both ways, you can't poach talent freely and then claim those same people can't work elsewhere.

The timing matters too. Apple filed this lawsuit in July 2025, right as it was ramping up its own AI initiatives and partnerships. Some observers see this as a strategic move to slow down a competitor as much as a genuine IP dispute. Trade secret cases are notoriously hard to prove, especially when the "secrets" are industry knowledge that multiple companies develop independently.

What makes this particularly interesting is how it could set precedent for the entire AI industry. If courts side with Apple and take an expansive view of trade secrets, it could significantly limit talent mobility and slow innovation. If OpenAI wins, it reinforces that general expertise and industry knowledge travel with employees.

The legal arguments will take months to play out, but the broader question is already clear. As AI becomes the defining technology battle of this decade, expect more fights over who owns the knowledge inside people's heads versus what's legitimately protected IP.

What this means for you: If you're building AI products or workflows, document your own development process independently. Don't rely on institutional knowledge from previous employers, rebuild your understanding from public sources and your own experimentation. Try this prompt with your AI assistant: "I need to implement [feature] but want to avoid any trade secret issues. Walk me through building this using only publicly available techniques and documentation, explaining each design choice from first principles."