Judge Edward Davila today granted some of Apple’s requests for expedited discovery in its trade secrets lawsuit against former employees, OpenAI, and io Products. Here are the details.
A few months ago, Apple filed a trade secrets misappropriation lawsuit against two former employees (Chang Liu and Tang Tan), OpenAI, and io Products.
In a nutshell, Apple says Liu and Tan improperly accessed or used confidential information about its products and technologies to help advance OpenAI’s consumer hardware development efforts. Apple also accuses the defendants of improperly obtaining information from other Apple employees during recruitment interviews.
You can read more about Apple’s original filing here.
As part of the lawsuit, Apple asked Judge Edward Davila to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from further embedding the alleged trade secrets in their hardware development while the case plays out.
Apple also requested expedited discovery, seeking early access to internal documents, forensic evidence, and testimony from OpenAI employees to better understand the extent of the alleged misappropriation and support its injunction request.
OpenAI opposed the motion, arguing that Apple’s demands were overly broad and that expedited discovery was unnecessary given that the regular process was about to begin.
In a decision issued today, Judge Davila granted most of Apple’s requests, while rejecting others and postponing a decision on those he considered overly broad.
That includes ordering the defendants to turn over several categories of documents and evidence, including:
Additionally, Judge Davila authorized Apple to depose Liu, Tan, and Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, as well as corporate representatives from OpenAI and io Products.
On the flip side, Judge Davila rejected Apple’s request for expedited access to OpenAI’s research and development documents regarding metal finishes, power management, and battery functionality for consumer hardware products. Instead, he decided that these will be addressed through the regular discovery process.
Finally, he postponed a series of decisions involving what Apple described as “Apple Originated Information,” finding Apple’s definition “amorphous as currently defined.” On that point, Apple has five days to consult with the defendants and submit a narrower definition to the court if it wishes to take another crack at those requests.
The decision also addressed whether the expedited depositions will count toward the limits imposed by federal discovery rules, as well as the deadlines for producing documents and conducting depositions, and you can read it in full below:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
Breaking news from Cupertino. We’ll give you t…
Marcus Mendes is a Brazilian tech podcaster and journalist who has been closely following Apple since the mid-2000s.
He began covering Apple news in Brazilian media in 2012 and later broadened his focus to the wider tech industry, hosting a daily podcast for seven years.
