Cue the little violins; Someone may have stolen something from Apple.

It’s a sad story, but the tech giant knows it very well. Maybe too well.

Apple’s successful lawsuit against OpenAI accuses the maker of ChatGPT of orchestrating a campaign to recruit Apple engineers, extract confidential information, and use the company’s trade secrets to fuel its own hardware ambitions.

The accusations are surprising. They are also family.

Over the years, Apple has faced lawsuits from companies that accuse it of using remarkably similar tactics: recruiting key employees and then using their knowledge to create competitive products.

Masimo’s complaint.

One of the most significant cases came from medical device manufacturer Masimo. In a lawsuit filed in 2020, Masimo alleged that Apple first explored a partnership before hiring several of its top executives and engineers, including experts in pulse oximetry technology.

Masimo said Apple used confidential knowledge gained through those hires to develop the blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch. Apple denied stealing trade secrets, arguing that it simply hired talented people and developed its technology independently.

The dispute eventually expanded to multiple trade secret and patent cases, as well as an International Trade Commission investigation.

A separate Masimo patent infringement allegation against Apple led to an import ban on the Apple Watch in 2023. In 2025, a federal jury ruled that Apple had infringed Masimo’s patents and ordered the tech giant to pay $634 million. The ban was revoked.

The A123 case

Years earlier, battery maker A123 Systems made similar accusations. A123 alleged that Apple systematically recruited members of its advanced battery team, including its former chief technology officer, and profited from confidential battery research.

Apple denied wrongdoing and the case was settled before going to trial.

Neither case produced a definitive judicial finding that Apple stole trade secrets from another company. Together, they illustrate a recurring pattern in Silicon Valley: Companies often accuse rivals of crossing the line between hiring talented employees and acquiring confidential knowledge.

In California, especially, employees are free to leave their employers whenever they want and work wherever they want. For big tech companies, that’s not always a good thing because, by definition, those experts walk away with valuable insights. That’s why they hire them.

How or when this becomes trade secret theft is a murky matter, indeed.

A secret pact

Apple has shown its displeasure over the free movement of talent in Silicon Valley. In the 2000s, it signed a secret pact with five other tech giants, including Google and Intel, that prevented the companies from directly soliciting each other’s employees, according to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

The companies paid more than $400 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the scandal, The New York Times reported.

the big kahuna

With that option ruled out, Apple employees have had more freedom to move. In 2019, Apple’s most famous employee, iPhone designer Jony Ive, did just that and founded his own company called io Products with other former Apple employees.

Last year, OpenAI acquired io and hired Ive and his team, including co-founder Tang Tan. Together, they are developing a consumer device that can challenge the iPhone and will almost certainly be better at artificial intelligence than Apple devices – a low bar, but very likely.

In the 40 pages of Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI, there is not a single reference to Ive other than a couple of URLs in footnotes that have the word “jony.”

That seems strange. If you were going to accuse another company of hiring its top executives and using their knowledge of its trade secrets, wouldn’t you mention the big kahuna?

There are several other former Apple employees who went to io or left Apple directly and now work at OpenAI. In Apple’s lawsuit, two are named: Tang Tan, co-founder of io, and Chang Liu.

A giant under pressure

So what’s going on here? My interpretation is that this is a rare example of a Silicon Valley tech giant being challenged at its own game by a capable, well-funded upstart with disruptive new technology.

When big tech companies feel confident, they often recruit aggressively among smaller rivals who complain that their ideas or expertise have been hijacked. When those same tech giants come under pressure from an ambitious newcomer, they suddenly become fierce defenders of trade secrets and confidential information.

So Apple probably went investigating to see what it could find. So far, a couple of former employees have emerged who may have brought some ideas to OpenAI.

Are these actions theft of trade secrets or smart employees exercising their right to work wherever they want and taking their knowledge with them? That’s what Apple argued in the Masimo case.

Whether Apple’s accusations against OpenAI prove true will be decided in court. The dispute underscores a familiar reality in the technology industry: Today’s plaintiff is often yesterday’s defendant.

Subscribe to BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Contact me by email at abarr@businessinsider.com.