OpenAI против Apple: слабая защита данных подрывает иск о краже секретов

OpenAI submitted new materials to the court in early August 2026 in the Apple trade secrets theft case — and the company's legal strategy turned out to be unconventional: instead of directly refuting the allegations, OpenAI intends to attack the plaintiff's own security regime.

What the New Court Documents Revealed

The newly submitted evidence reveals the central line of OpenAI's defense: the company argues that Apple systematically violated its own information security procedures — and this undermines a key element of any trade secret lawsuit.

The central fact in these materials: Apple allowed its manager to access the iCloud account of a former engineer after he had already left the company. Under the American Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), legal protection is granted only on one condition — the rights holder took "reasonable measures" to protect the information. OpenAI insists: allowing access to the personal cloud storage of a terminated employee directly contradicts this requirement.

• The essence of the case: Apple's lawsuit over theft of trade secrets linked to OpenAI
• Defense strategy: challenge not the leak itself, but the plaintiff's data protection regime
• Key fact: an Apple manager accessed a terminated engineer's iCloud account after his departure
• DTSA legal requirement: the plaintiff must prove "reasonable measures" to protect trade secrets

Why the iCloud Argument Carries Legal Weight

An employee's iCloud account stores work documents, correspondence, and backups of corporate data — precisely the kind of content that is typically blocked or wiped remotely during standard offboarding. If Apple allowed an outside manager to read such an account after the employee's termination, this looks like a direct violation of basic corporate security standards.

In American court practice, shortcomings in a plaintiff's information protection regularly serve as grounds for dismissing a trade secret claim. Courts consistently operate on the principle: a company that does not protect its own secrets has no right to demand their protection in court. This precedential principle opens a very real path for OpenAI to have the charges dropped — even if the actual leak of information is proven.

"Apple's own offboarding practices undermine its claim that the information was properly protected," reads the court materials submitted by

OpenAI.

Why

Such Lawsuits Have Become More Frequent in the AI Industry

Trade secret cases involving employees moving between competing technology companies have surged sharply as the AI market has grown. Large corporations turn to the courts when key engineers leave for competitors — including OpenAI. For Apple, whose AI strategy is built on several critical machine learning developments, protecting intellectual property has direct consequences for competitiveness.

At the same time, the strict requirements of the DTSA make such cases difficult for plaintiffs: the court evaluates not only the defendant's actions, but also the consistency of the company itself in protecting the claimed secrets. Judging by the chosen tactic, OpenAI's legal team intends to make precisely this question central to the proceedings — and turn Apple's own offboarding practices into the main counterargument.

What This Means

Negligence in internal offboarding procedures can nullify even a well-founded trade secret lawsuit. For the entire technology industry, this episode is a vivid reminder: companies planning to protect intellectual property in court must first build impeccable access controls for data belonging to terminated employees. OpenAI apparently expects that this argument will become its primary shield in the unfolding legal confrontation with Apple.