OpenAI has told a federal judge it will not use the trade secrets Apple says were stolen while their lawsuit plays out. According to 9to5Mac, reporting on a Bloomberg story, OpenAI made the concession at an October 14, 2026 hearing, after U.S. District Judge Edward Davila said he was "highly likely" to grant Apple a preliminary injunction. OpenAI also agreed to collect forensic images of devices belonging to 14 employees who may hold Apple confidential information.
This is the newest step in a case we have tracked since Apple's July complaint. The day before, the court ordered OpenAI to hand over hiring records. Hours before the hearing OpenAI filed its own allegation, which we covered as claimed versus verified. Below: what was agreed, what a preliminary injunction is, and what the 14 devices tell us.
TL;DR: the October 14 hearing at a glance
| Question | Answer (per reports) |
|---|---|
| Who is the judge? | U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, Northern District of California, San Jose |
| Case | Apple v. Liu, No. 5:26-cv-07078 |
| What did OpenAI agree to? | Not to use trade secrets Apple claims were stolen, while the case proceeds |
| Forensic images | OpenAI to collect images of 14 employees' devices |
| Enforceable? | Yes, the judge can enforce it; sanctions possible for noncompliance |
| Injunction granted? | Not reported; the judge said he was highly likely to grant it |
| Apple's broader inspection ask | Called a "huge ask" by the judge |
| Finding of wrongdoing? | None. OpenAI denies the allegations |
What exactly did OpenAI agree to?
Per the 9to5Mac account, OpenAI voluntarily agreed "not to use trade secrets that Apple Inc. claims were stolen" for the duration of the federal case. The wording matters: the promise covers what Apple claims, so it does not concede that any secret was taken. It is a stand-still, not a confession.
The second commitment is practical. OpenAI will collect forensic images of devices from 14 employees that may contain Apple's confidential information. A forensic image is a bit-for-bit copy of a drive or phone that preserves deleted files and metadata. Collecting them freezes the evidence so nobody can later say it was altered, wiped or overwritten.
iClarified's summary adds that Davila can enforce the arrangement. That is the key legal difference from a mere promise in a press statement: if OpenAI breaks it, Apple can ask the court for sanctions.
Why did OpenAI concede after the judge's remark?
Davila reportedly said he was "highly likely" to grant Apple's preliminary injunction request. A preliminary injunction is a court order issued before trial that tells a party to stop doing something while the case is decided. Courts weigh four things: whether the requester is likely to win, whether it faces harm money cannot fix, the balance of hardships, and the public interest.
If a judge signals the first factor leans toward Apple, a defendant has a strategic reason to offer a narrower voluntary agreement. It avoids a formal order, keeps the terms negotiated rather than imposed, and avoids a written ruling that could describe the evidence unfavorably. That is our reading of the incentives, not something OpenAI has said. OpenAI's stated position, per a filing quoted by Claims Journal, is that it "has no need or desire for Apple's trade secrets."
Evidence being pulled from an archive tray as a metaphor for forensic discovery in the Apple OpenAI trade secrets case
What are the 14 devices, and why not more?
Apple wanted a much wider inspection. The judge pushed back, calling the idea of inspecting every device and repository that could hold Apple's secrets a "huge ask." Apple's lawyer, John M. Desmarais, answered that the inspection could be limited to a small group of former employees, arguing OpenAI has "a few bad apples and know who they are," not "400 bad apples."
The reports do not say who the 14 are. Earlier coverage named former Apple engineer Chang Liu and OpenAI hardware chief Tang Yew Tan as defendants, and in August Apple identified 11 additional former employees, which would make 13 named people. Whether the 14 devices map onto those names is not reported, so treat any such match as speculation.
The number is still informative. It shows the court is steering the dispute toward a bounded, person-by-person evidence set rather than a company-wide search, which is typical when a judge wants proportionality in expedited discovery.
What did Apple allege, and how has OpenAI responded?
Apple's complaint, as summarized by Claims Journal, accuses OpenAI, its hardware chief and Liu of conspiring to extract confidential information from former employees about product design, manufacturing, component technologies, testing methods and the supply chain. Apple says job interviews were used to elicit proprietary material, and that candidates were told to bring prototypes and design artifacts to "show and tell" sessions. It also says Liu exploited an authentication flaw to download files from Apple network storage.
OpenAI's response has three strands. It says the suit treats ordinary job interviews as misappropriation. It says Apple identified broad categories rather than specific secrets. And it says Apple's own offboarding left Liu with access and that Apple staff kept asking him questions after he left, which it supported in August by publishing private messages.
The counter-allegation filed hours earlier
On the morning of the hearing, OpenAI filed a motion alleging that a former employee who joined from Apple, spent six months at OpenAI and then returned to Apple sent more than 100 highly confidential files about an unreleased OpenAI device to personal accounts, per the reports. Apple told Bloomberg it found no evidence supporting OpenAI's claims and called the filing an attempt to distract.
We cover that filing in detail in a separate post. The relevant point here is that the two companies are now each accusing the other of mishandling the other's hardware information, and a court will sort out which claims have evidence behind them. The filing does not itself bring counterclaims, though OpenAI asked for time to investigate whether Apple has or used its information.
Discovery: what the court has and has not granted
On October 13 the court granted Apple limited expedited discovery, covering hiring and interview records, previously collected forensic material, and depositions. It declined to speed up access to certain R&D documents, which will follow the regular schedule. Together with the October 14 agreement, the picture is a court giving Apple the recruiting paper trail and preserved devices, while holding back OpenAI's product engineering files for now.
How to read this without over-reading it
Three cautions help.
A voluntary stand-still is not an adjudication. Nothing here establishes that OpenAI possesses any Apple secret. It establishes that, until the case ends, OpenAI will not use what Apple claims, and that evidence is being preserved.
"Highly likely" is a judge's preliminary view. It is a signal about one injunction factor, not a ruling. Judges can and do change their minds when the written record is complete, and no order had been reported when we published.
Most details come from one wire report. The agreement was reported through Bloomberg and outlets summarizing it, and it was reportedly made orally at a hearing. We have not seen a filed stipulation or order, so its exact written terms are unconfirmed. The public CourtListener docket is the place to check once filings appear.
What does this mean for OpenAI's hardware plans?
OpenAI is building consumer devices after buying io Products, and press reports describe a possible smart speaker, which we discussed in our AI companion hardware post, plus its Glass Imaging acquisition. The stand-still does not stop that work. It does mean engineers must be able to show that designs came from clean sources, which in practice means documented provenance for components, finishes and supplier choices.
If Apple later shows that any of those inputs trace back to its files, the preliminary injunction could widen and the timeline could slip. Until then the practical effect is legal overhead: forensic collection, depositions and careful engineering records.
Scale with a green spark representing the preliminary injunction decision in Apple's case against OpenAI
What founders and hiring managers can take from it
This case is a live example of how talent flows become litigation. Practical habits, none of them legal advice:
- Write interview guides that forbid asking for a prior employer's confidential material, and train interviewers to stop candidates who volunteer it.
- Run clean-room onboarding. New hires attest in writing that they brought nothing, and IT verifies it at the start.
- Preserve evidence early. If a dispute is plausible, imaging devices before anyone touches them protects you as much as the other side.
- Separate personal and work accounts. Both companies in this case argue about personal iCloud and message accounts.
- Expect chat apps to be evidence. Last week's order reached private LINE messages.
For teams that run AI agents with access to code and documents, the same logic applies to automated tools: an agent that copies files to a personal or third-party location creates the same trail. AgentBeam is the agent security platform from the explainx.ai team that stops AI agents before they take dangerous actions, such as moving sensitive files out of a workspace.
What to watch next
- The injunction order. Whether Davila issues a formal preliminary injunction, and how it is worded compared with the voluntary agreement.
- The motion to dismiss. OpenAI asked the court to throw out the entire suit; a ruling would reset the case.
- Forensic results. Findings from the 14 devices may surface in later filings, subject to sealing.
- The depositions of Liu, Alyssa Peng and Tang Yew Tan.
- Leadership context. Apple is mid-transition after Tim Cook stepped down, which may affect how hard it pursues the case.
We will add an update section when a written order or the first forensic findings appear. Related background on workplace conduct inside AI labs is in our report on an OpenAI employee arrested over a hidden recording device.
Related reading
- Apple sues OpenAI over AI hardware trade secrets
- OpenAI: "Apple is getting this wrong"
- Judge orders OpenAI to hand Apple its hiring records
- OpenAI says a returning employee sent 100+ device files
- OpenAI hardware: the AI companion smart speaker
- Tim Cook steps down, John Ternus becomes Apple CEO
Case details are accurate as of October 15, 2026 and may change as filings continue.