Apple filed fresh evidence in its lawsuit against OpenAI, which started back in July 2026. The suit’s claim was simple but serious. 

Apple said former employees stole trade secrets. And those secrets, Apple argued, ended up helping OpenAI.

A current OpenAI employee, Chang Liu, used to work at Apple. Apple believes he took confidential information when he left.

Liu’s legal team recently handed over his old Apple work laptop. Investigators got their hands on it this month, and what they found, according to Apple, was damning.

New Evidence

Apple claims Liu used a private Apple circuit schematic while working at OpenAI. That’s a serious accusation on its own.

Apple also says Liu used a tool with the same name as an internal Apple engineering application. That detail raised even more red flags for Apple’s legal team.

Apple claims OpenAI knew about his access to Apple data and allowed it to continue. The company further stated that Liu asked a coworker for help. 

That coworker, Yu-Ting Peng, also works at OpenAI. Together, Apple alleges, they tried to destroy evidence. This happened in June, right after Liu learned Apple was investigating him.

Significance

Apple says the laptop shows that trade secrets are being used. And evidence, they say, is being wiped out.

Apple wants the judge to see this as active, ongoing harm. Most of the new evidence stays hidden from public view. It’s redacted. 

But older filings already gave us a glimpse into Liu’s mindset. Earlier messages showed Liu joking around. He used crying-laughing emojis in texts. 

Those messages suggested he knew he still had access to Apple’s files. He just didn’t seem too worried about it at the time.

OpenAI

OpenAI has defended Liu publicly, saying Liu only opened Apple files after he had already left the company. And he wasn’t doing it for himself. 

Former coworkers reached out for help, OpenAI claims. Liu was simply being helpful. OpenAI also flipped the blame back onto Apple. 

In a blog post, the company pointed to something called residual access. That’s when a former employee can still get into old company systems. It happens more often than people think.

OpenAI called this a common problem at Apple specifically. The real issue, they argued, is poor offboarding. 

When someone leaves a company, their access should be shut off right away. OpenAI suggests Apple dropped the ball here.

Apple

Apple says Liu didn’t just stumble into leftover access. Instead, Apple claims he exploited a rare and previously unknown authentication bug.

That’s why Apple is demanding action from the court. First, Apple is asking for a preliminary injunction. That’s a legal order. 

If granted, it would stop OpenAI from building hardware based on Apple’s technology. This would apply while the case moves forward.

Second, Apple wants expedited discovery. That means speeding up the evidence-gathering process. Apple believes time matters here. 

The company suspects more former employees could be involved too. According to Apple’s original filing, more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI.

That highlights just how much talent has moved between these two companies.