Sam Altman 不需要又一场官司：Apple 起诉 OpenAI 窃取商业机密

OpenAI在过去一年大部分时间都卷入了一桩又一桩的诉讼，包括来自世界首富的诉讼。但就在上周五，公司遭遇了迄今最引人注目的法律行动之一——来自苹果。OpenAI昂贵的硬件押注正面临风险。

苹果在北加州联邦法院对OpenAI提起的诉讼指控前苹果员工“为OpenAI的利益窃取苹果的商业机密”。这份41页的投诉书：https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28453238-complaint-for-trade-secret-misappropriation-and-breach-of-contract/ 说明，苹果保持其“产品开发、制造、供应链、技术研究及其他创新机密”，并且“涵盖苹果硬件业务的商业机密总体上构成了美国商业中最有价值的知识资产之一”。

指控涉及三名前苹果员工：唐坦，前Apple Watch副总裁，在苹果工作了24年后成为OpenAI的首席硬件官（在OpenAI收购乔尼·艾夫的硬件公司io之后）；刘畅，前iPhone系统电气工程师，在苹果工作8年后加入OpenAI；以及彭宇婷（“Alyssa”），另一名前苹果员工，也离开苹果加入OpenAI。（关于彭在苹果的任职情况知之甚少。）诉讼中提出了许多大胆的指控：/tech/964843/apple-openai-lawsuit-wildest-claims，包括唐坦 allegedly要求潜在员工在OpenAI面试期间将苹果硬件带出办公室进行“展示”，并指导苹果员工如何规避公司的离职安全程序。（尚不清楚苹果的哪些硬件相关商业机密可能已经进入OpenAI的设备，因为目前尚未公开展示任何产品。）

McKool Smith公司商业机密实践区联合主席、公司AI诉讼追踪器负责人Avery Williams告诉《The Verge》，他认为OpenAI的法律麻烦远未结束。“他们已经被起诉很多次。[但是]在我们获得高级法院针对AI训练的合理使用问题的裁决之前，OpenAI还无法脱困。这是一个万亿美元的问题。”

OpenAI希望通过招聘来弥补硬件上的不足并加快硬件进展，这是合理的。但现在，这导致了可能代价高昂的法律战。

“在你尝试上市时被苹果起诉永远不是件好事，”麦库尔史密斯的威廉姆斯说。“苹果是一个顽强的诉讼方……他们往往不会退缩。”

OpenAI未对置评请求作出回应。

周末，一位X用户写道：https://x.com/iliketeslas/status/2076029296770957502?s=20，“萨姆·奥特曼不怕埃隆，但他害怕苹果。你可以从他今天所有的发帖看出来。”奥特曼回应说，“我不怕苹果，但我对他们非常尊重。顶级公司。”

苹果和OpenAI过去在公众关系上相对积极；两家公司在2024年达成协议，将ChatGPT整合到苹果设备中。这起诉讼代表了重大变化。“苹果和OpenAI一直站在同一阵线……随着行业竞争越来越激烈，你会开始看到这些联盟出现裂痕，”里卡律所的霍说。

“这实际上并不是一个AI案件，而是针对一家AI公司的案件，”威廉姆斯继续说。“涉案的公司很大，但指控本身并不罕见。”

对于网络安全公司DTEX的国家级威胁研究员迈克尔·巴恩哈特来说，这些指控的“分层方法”使苹果的诉讼颇具趣味：招聘阶段的获取、基于面试的索取、内部勾结。他说，这在内部威胁方面“非常普通，这就是他们的行为方式”。但同时，他说，“我们可以坐在那里，我会调出一家做过这些事之一的公司……你会有一家，你会有两家，你会有三家——这一家全都具备。这一家公司有很多，而且还是在最高层面。”

有些讽刺的是，在一个之所以存在完全依赖于它所消耗的大量数据——无论是技术上合法还是未经授权——的行业中，AI实验室在别人将这些信息带到其他地方时却格外好诉讼。毕竟，AI行业是一个小世界，而且以派系化著称。Anthropic由前OpenAI高管创立，xAI由前OpenAI联合创始人创立，无数初创公司被他们诞生的公司或这些公司的主要竞争对手收购（或者其核心人才被“收购式聘用”）。每家领先AI公司的许多有影响力的人曾与另一家公司的竞争对手密切合作，未来其中许多人可能还会再合作。

苹果在法律文件中暗示，前往OpenAI并带走关键信息的前员工远比诉讼中提到的更多。该公司表示，它“发现了OpenAI员工（曾在苹果工作）的窃取苹果商业机密的模式”，并称“这只是冰山一角……从技术员工到首席硬件官，以及与商业合作伙伴协调，OpenAI一直在窃取苹果的商业机密和机密信息。”

Watstein Terepka LLP的创始合伙人Alex Terepka表示，此案可能会争议激烈且拖延多年。“苹果和OpenAI都将为此长期抗争，”他说，“苹果在此案中准备的材料说实话已经远远足够应对驳回动议。接下来要进入证据披露阶段，在此类案件中可能会非常复杂。”

AI行业的软件方面已产生了无法估量的炒作、竞争和争议，而硬件是AI公司下一步瞄准征服的领域。但由于AI设备尚未在大规模上真正接受测试，需要时间才能看到该领域的成功长什么样——尤其是在苹果与OpenAI之间可能长达数年的法律大战之下。

OpenAI has spent the better part of the year involved in lawsuit after lawsuit, including one from the world’s richest man. But last Friday, the company was hit with one of the highest-profile legal actions yet — from Apple. OpenAI’s expensive hardware bet is what’s on the line.

Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI, filed in Northern California federal court, accused former Apple employees of “stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI.” The 41-page complaint：https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28453238-complaint-for-trade-secret-misappropriation-and-breach-of-contract/ states that Apple keeps its “product development, manufacturing, supply chain, technology research, and other innovations confidential” and that “the trade secrets spanning Apple’s hardware operations collectively constitute one of the most valuable intellectual assets in all of American business.”

The allegations referenced three former Apple employees: Tang Tan, former VP of Apple Watch, who spent 24 years at Apple before becoming chief hardware officer of OpenAI (after OpenAI bought Jony Ive’s hardware company, io); Chang Liu, former systems electrical engineer for iPhone, who spent eight years at Apple before departing for OpenAI; and Yu-Ting “Alyssa” Peng, another former Apple employee who also left for OpenAI. (Less is known about Peng’s Apple tenure.) The lawsuit makes a lot of wild claims：/tech/964843/apple-openai-lawsuit-wildest-claims, including Tan allegedly requesting prospective employees to bring Apple hardware outside the office for “show and tell” during their OpenAI interviews and coaching Apple employees about how to avoid the company’s offboarding security procedures. (It’s unclear which, if any, of Apple’s hardware-related trade secrets may have made it into OpenAI’s device, as it does not yet have a publicly shown product.)

Avery Williams, cochair of the trade secret practice area at McKool Smith and author of the firm’s AI Litigation Tracker, told The Verge that he thinks OpenAI’s legal troubles are far from over. “They’ve gotten sued a lot. [But] OpenAI is not going to be out of the woods until we get a ruling from a higher court on the fair use question for AI training. It’s a trillion-dollar question.”

It makes sense that OpenAI would want to hire to fill in those hardware gaps and speed up its hardware progress. But now, it’s led to what will likely be a costly legal battle.

“It’s never fantastic to get sued by Apple when you’re trying to IPO,” said McKool Smith’s Williams. “Apple is a tenacious litigant … They do not tend to back down.”

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the weekend, one X user wrote：https://x.com/iliketeslas/status/2076029296770957502?s=20, “Sam Altman wasn’t afraid of Elon but he is terrified of Apple. You can tell by all his posting today.” Altman replied, “i am not afraid of apple, but i have tremendous respect for them. s-tier company.”

Apple and OpenAI have in the past had a relatively positive public relationship; the two in 2024 entered into an agreement to integrate ChatGPT into Apple devices. This lawsuit represents a significant departure. “Apple and OpenAI have been on the same side … As the industry gets more and more competitive, you’re starting to see these alliances fracture,” said Rikka Law Group’s Ho.

“This isn’t really an AI case as it is a case against an AI company,” Williams continued. “The players are huge, but the allegations are otherwise not unusual.”

For Michael Barnhart, a nation-state threat researcher at cybersecurity firm DTEX, “the layered approach” of the allegations made Apple’s lawsuit interesting: hiring-stage extraction, interview-based solicitation, internal collusion. It’s “very run-of-the-mill in terms of insider threats and this is how they act,” he said. But at the same time, he said, “We can sit there and I’ll pull up a company that did one of these things badly … You’ll have one, you’ll have two, you’ll have three — this one’s got all of them. This one has so many. And also, too, at the highest level.”

It’s somewhat ironic that, in an industry that’s only possible because of the untold amounts of data it’s consumed — whether technically above-board or unauthorized — AI labs get particularly litigious when others take that information elsewhere. After all, the AI industry is a small world, and it’s famously cliquish. Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI executives, xAI was founded by an ex-OpenAI cofounder, and countless startups have been acquired (or their core talent acqui-hired) by either the workplaces they were born out of or those companies’ chief competitors. Many of the most influential people at every leading AI company once worked extremely closely with their rivals at another, and in the future, many of them probably will again.

Apple implied in its legal filing that there were significantly more former employees who left for OpenAI with key information than it named in the lawsuit. The company said it had “uncovered a pattern of theft of Apple’s trade secrets by OpenAI employees who were formerly at Apple” and that “this is the tip of the iceberg … At every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information.”

Alex Terepka, a founding partner of Watstein Terepka LLP, said the case is likely to be contentious and drawn out, potentially over the course of years. “Apple and OpenAI are going to be in this for the long haul,” he said. “What Apple’s put together here is frankly way more than enough to survive a motion to dismiss. Then you’re going to get into discovery, which in these types of cases can be super involved.”

The software side of the AI industry has generated inestimable hype, competition, and controversy, but hardware is the next area AI companies have their sights set on conquering. But since AI devices haven’t truly been tested yet on a broad scale, it’ll take time to see what success in that space looks like — especially with a potential yearslong legal battle between Apple and OpenAI ahead.