OpenAI argues Apple’s own internal security and offboarding practices weaken its trade secrets lawsuit

A newly filed set of court exhibits has added a new line of attack in the broader trade secrets fight between OpenAI and Apple, with OpenAI arguing that Apple’s own internal security practices and offboarding procedures weaken the case it is bringing against the artificial intelligence company.

According to the report, OpenAI’s filings do not merely respond to Apple’s claims about what information was allegedly taken or misused. Instead, OpenAI says Apple’s own security posture and how it manages access for engineers and managers shows shortcomings that are relevant to how Apple built and protected the information at the center of the dispute.

The dispute has focused on allegations that OpenAI and individuals associated with it took or used Apple-related trade secrets. In the latest development highlighted by Yahoo Finance, OpenAI points to evidence it has included in the case, portraying Apple’s internal controls as less robust than Apple’s lawsuit implies.

The newly referenced exhibits, as described in the report, include arguments tied to access management. OpenAI says Apple’s practices allowed an Apple manager to access a former engineer’s information after that engineer had left the company, a point OpenAI frames as undermining Apple’s assertion that its trade secrets were tightly secured and that any exposure must have come from OpenAI.

OpenAI’s broader strategy, as characterized by the report, appears to be shifting part of the emphasis away from whether OpenAI had the capability or opportunity to misappropriate sensitive information, and toward whether Apple itself created the conditions that could allow information access to persist after employment ended.

Neither Apple nor OpenAI, in the cited report, is described as offering a detailed public explanation of the precise security and offboarding policies at issue, nor is the report able to confirm the full scope of what Apple’s internal procedures did or did not require. As a result, many of the technical or procedural details that would matter most to a judge, such as how access was granted, revoked, logged, and audited, are not fully laid out in the public account.

For Apple, the practical implication is that the litigation may increasingly turn on technical governance issues, including the strength of internal systems designed to protect proprietary work, especially in the context of departures and ongoing management oversight. For the technology sector, the case also highlights a recurring theme in trade secrets litigation: companies suing over alleged misuse of confidential information often face scrutiny about their own precautions, documentation, and access controls.