Law & Regulation

Apple Went for the Injunction, Not the Damages

Apple asked a California court on 3 August to bar two former employees and OpenAI from using its alleged confidential information, and to depose six parties on an expedited schedule. OpenAI answered a day later.

Law & RegulationBy Servola Tech Desk2026-08-044 min read

AI-assisted, edited by humans. | Editor-in-Chief: Leon Soliman | Editorial standards

Apple Went for the Injunction, Not the Damages

Key takeaways

Apple asked a federal court on 3 August to bar two named former employees and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing its alleged trade secrets, and in the same filing asked to depose six parties on an expedited schedule, so the restriction and the questioning both arrive long before any trial.
A preliminary injunction is decided on an incomplete record and applies immediately. Apple does not have to prove misappropriation to limit what the two engineers are allowed to touch while the case runs.
The expedited discovery motion names Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, both formerly of Apple, OpenAI employee Yu-Ting Peng, an unnamed fourth employee who also came from Apple, and corporate representatives of both OpenAI and io Products.
OpenAI's published answer is procedural as much as factual: it says Apple's outside lawyers wrote to the wrong person after confusing two surnames, and that Apple has conceded a conversation it described with OpenAI's general counsel never happened.
If you are hiring senior staff out of a competitor, assume the first legal event is an injunction and a deposition schedule rather than a damages claim, and put the list of subjects the new hire may not work on in writing before their first day.

What Apple filed on Monday

Apple sued OpenAI, its hardware chief Tang Yew Tan and former engineer Chang Liu on 10 July in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. On 3 August it returned to the same court with two motions that change the tempo of the case. The first asks for a preliminary injunction barring the former employees and OpenAI from accessing, acquiring, using or disclosing what Apple says is its confidential and trade secret information. The second asks for expedited discovery.

The discovery motion is the more concrete of the two. Apple wants documents relating to the defendants' alleged access to its proprietary information, and it wants depositions: from Liu and Tan, from OpenAI employee Yu-Ting Peng, from a fourth OpenAI employee who also worked at Apple and is not named in the reporting, and from corporate representatives of OpenAI and of io Products, the hardware arm named as a defendant alongside it.

Neither motion asks for money. Apple filed for control of what the defendants may do next, and for sworn answers on a compressed timetable.

The remedy runs against people, not products

Coverage of a trade secrets suit usually fixes on the eventual damages number. That number, if it ever arrives, is years away and most often settles. The preliminary injunction is the part that operates now, and it operates on individuals: it would tell two named engineers what they may not access or use while employed somewhere else.

The standard is lower than it looks from outside. Apple does not have to prove that anything was misappropriated. It has to persuade a judge that it is likely to succeed and that it faces harm money cannot repair. Hardware roadmaps are the textbook example of harm a court will accept as irreparable, because a design decision that has been copied cannot be uncopied.

That sequencing is the reason to watch this case as an employer rather than as a spectator. The event that constrains a business is not the verdict. It is an order issued months into a case, on an incomplete record, that narrows what a senior hire is permitted to work on.

OpenAI answered on process as much as on facts

OpenAI published its response on 4 August under the title Apple is getting this wrong. It says the injunction request rests on false information and is unnecessary, because the company neither has nor wants Apple's trade secrets, and that it has offered to work with Apple directly.

Two of its rebuttals concern how the dispute was handled rather than what was taken. OpenAI says Apple's outside lawyers sent their notice to the wrong person after confusing two similar surnames, and corrected it only once OpenAI pointed the error out. It also says Apple has now conceded that a discussion it described with OpenAI's general counsel never happened. Alongside these it published messages in which former Apple colleagues asked Chang Liu, whose last day at Apple was 22 January, to help them locate files for their own Apple work.

None of that resolves whether trade secrets moved. It does show what an opposing party can do with the record of how a company approached them before suing, which is an argument for routing that approach through counsel rather than through a product team.

Before your next senior hire starts

The exposure here is symmetrical and it is not exotic. A firm that loses a senior engineer and a firm that gains one both end up explaining under oath what was accessed in the final weeks and what was said in the interviews. In Europe the same evidence question arrives in a different procedural shape: the EU Trade Secrets Directive gives national courts interim measures that work much like the order Apple is asking for here.

The work is documentary and it is cheap to do in advance. Revoke access on the last working day rather than the last payroll day. Keep the download logs. Put in writing, before the start date, the list of subjects the new hire will not work on, and have them acknowledge it. If a request for help arrives from their former colleagues after they leave, as it did here, keep it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a preliminary injunction and why does it matter more than the lawsuit?

It is a court order issued while a case is still running, before the facts are established. Apple asked for one on 3 August. If granted, it would immediately restrict what the named individuals and OpenAI may access or use, without Apple having proved its claims. For a business, an order that lands months into a case and limits what staff may work on is more disruptive than a damages figure that arrives years later or never.

Does this affect European employers, or is it purely a US case?

The case is in the Northern District of California and its orders bind there. The mechanism is not unique to the United States. The EU Trade Secrets Directive gives national courts power to order interim measures against an alleged infringer, including provisional restrictions pending trial. An employer in Germany, France or the Netherlands hiring a senior engineer from a competitor faces the same category of risk by a different procedural route.

What does OpenAI's argument about the wrong email address actually establish?

On its own, nothing about whether trade secrets moved. It is aimed at the claim that OpenAI ignored Apple's warnings. OpenAI says the notice went to the wrong person because two surnames were confused, and that Apple has conceded a conversation with its general counsel never took place. Those points go to whether an injunction is urgent and necessary, which is precisely what the judge has to decide.

The number at the end of a trade secrets case is the part that makes headlines. The order in the middle of it is the part that decides what your business can build while you wait.

AppleOpenAITrade secretsPreliminary injunctionio ProductsSenior hiringLitigation

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