OpenAI moves to dismiss Apple's trade-secrets suit, calling it 'baseless and pretextual'

OpenAI filed a 31-page motion on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, seeking to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit, arguing the company failed to identify a protectable trade secret or plausibly allege that anything was misappropriated.

The motion escalates a fight that turned public days earlier, when OpenAI issued a rebuttal saying Apple had gotten the dispute wrong. Apple’s suit names OpenAI, its hardware unit io Products, and two former Apple employees it hired, Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan and technical staffer Chang Liu, alleging the pair used job interviews to extract confidential Apple information.

In its filing, OpenAI called the case “baseless and pretextual,” a maneuver meant to compensate for Apple’s “shortcomings in the market for talent.” “OpenAI has no use, need or desire for Apple’s trade secrets,” the motion said. More than 400 Apple alumni now work at OpenAI — a figure Apple’s suit casts as systematic poaching and OpenAI casts as a broad talent migration rather than a targeted raid.

The motion is one side’s argument, and the court has not weighed Apple’s claims. Apple must respond by August 19, 2026, and a hearing is scheduled for October 1, 2026 in federal court in San Jose, California.

The case tests how far companies can go to protect knowledge that walks out the door with departing staff, an increasingly high-stakes question as AI hardware teams poach aggressively from one another. The next marker is whether the judge narrows or clears the suit after the October hearing.