Apple has filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that it and two of its employees stole top-secret information in a souring of relations between the two tech giants.

The case, filed on Friday, accuses Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, both former Apple employees, of stealing trade secrets for the benefit of their new employer, OpenAI. The iPhone maker says in its claim that it uncovered “a pattern of theft” of its trade secrets by OpenAI employees.

A spokesperson for OpenAI said: “We have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

The lawsuit alleges that Liu and Tan abused access to Apple’s internal systems in order to provide a competitive advantage to OpenAI, which is currently working to develop hardware.

Liu spent eight years at Apple as a senior system electronics engineer before joining OpenAI in January this year. The lawsuit alleges that Liu “has taken steps to hide the full extent of his theft, which Apple is still investigating,” but that it has already found evidence that he used a former colleague’s computer to access Apple’s network without the company’s permission, and continued to hold his own work laptop after being required to return it.

The engineer is alleged to have described his unauthorised access as “so funny”, after downloading “dozens” of confidential hardware-related files and coaching an Apple employee he was attempting to recruit on what confidential material to study in preparation for her OpenAI interview.

Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, is also accused of wrongdoing. The suit alleges that he in the months before he left, Tan discussed meetings with a key Apple supplier with OpenAI and emailed himself information about Apple’s suppliers and summaries of the consumer electronics industry.

He also continues to ask Apple employees interviewing for OpenAI about confidential projects at the company, according to the lawsuit, directing candidates to bring “actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for a “show and tell” session. Tan is now OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer.

Apple’s suit describes the behaviour it is aware of as “the tip of the iceberg,” adding that at OpenAI, “such misconduct is normalised and exemplified by leadership”.

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