OpenAI wants to turn Apple's trade secret lawsuit around. In a filing dated October 14, 2026, it told the federal court in San Jose that a former employee, who came over from Apple, stayed six months and then went back, sent more than a hundred confidential files about at least one unreleased OpenAI device to personal accounts.

The haul, as OpenAI describes it, goes well past a few slides. Detailed images of the hardware. Manufacturing and supplier data, cosmetic finish standards, and reports on how components get coated and sealed. Some of it went out just after midnight in Singapore on June 2, the employee's last day at OpenAI. The filing also claims the person walked Apple's senior leadership, including its vice president of operations in Asia, through OpenAI's product plans months ago.

The footnote is where it gets pointed. To back the claim that Apple is "making a new push into AI-enabled products," OpenAI cites Apple's new Home Collection and the HomeView hub, the name that first surfaced in the HomeView trademark filing last week. No product feature is tied to the files, though. The link is timing and implication.

What OpenAI actually asks for is modest: room in the case schedule to investigate and, if the evidence holds, to file counterclaims. Apple told Reuters it has found no evidence behind the claims and that its policies keep new hires from using a former employer's confidential information.

Apple sued in July, accusing Chang Liu and Tang Tan of taking its trade secrets to build OpenAI's hardware. The case has moved fast since. On October 13 the court partly granted Apple's request for expedited discovery, giving OpenAI up to two weeks to hand over forensic evidence and its interview materials with former Apple employees. A day later Judge Edward Davila said he's "highly likely" to grant a preliminary injunction barring OpenAI from using the disputed secrets, per MacRumors.

To me the timing reads as a bargaining chip. OpenAI raised this on the same day a judge signaled he'd probably rule against it, and a counterclaim, even an unfiled one, turns a one-sided case into a fight both companies have to defend.

Nothing here touches anyone buying Apple's home gear, and the docket still lists the trial date as none set.