Apple lawsuit against OpenAI: Embarrassing email glitch escalated the dispute

Apple is suing OpenAI for allegedly stealing secret hardware information. Current documents now show the strange trigger for the escalation. An email address error caused early talks between the tech giants to fail.

Lawsuit for betrayal of secrets

Apple accuses the company behind ChatGPT of unlawfully obtaining confidential hardware information. The Cupertino-based company filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and two of its own former employees in July. The accusation is that the defendants stole sensitive business secrets in order to advance their own technological projects more quickly. This is primarily about specific architectural details that are of great importance for future developments.

In the indictment, the iPhone maker claims that the AI ​​company did not respond to initial attempts to contact it in February. However, new evidence shows that the lack of response was due to a simple communication error by an outside law firm. The early out-of-court discussions ultimately failed due to a mixed up email address. This led to unnecessary tension on both sides.

Termination of communication

Like the US channel NBC News reported that the lawyer Gabriel Gross confused two people involved. He wanted to contact a former Apple engineer with the last name Wang, who now works for OpenAI. Instead, he mistakenly sent the important message to Che Chang, OpenAI’s general counsel. The error initially went unnoticed.

In the email, Gross thanked Wang for a phone call he had recently had with Wang. Chang was unaware of any conversation and accused the lawyer of spreading falsehoods. The general counsel then asked Apple’s internal lawyers to immediately withdraw external counsel from the case. He saw the professional trust as being seriously jeopardized by the approach.

Failed negotiations

The company rejected the claim and the out-of-court negotiations immediately came to a standstill. Gross apologized specifically for the oversight the following day. At that point, however, according to available court documents, the relationship of trust between the legal departments involved had already been irreparably damaged.

A quick agreement therefore became a long way off. A spokesman for OpenAI emphasized that the claim that requests had been ignored was absolutely not true. The company has no interest in third-party business secrets and instead concentrates entirely on developing its own technologies. Apple has not yet commented publicly on the published emails.