Apple builds its OpenAI injunction case on one laptop produced weeks late

A spoliation allegation is expensive in a different currency from the rest of this case. The cheapest defense OpenAI has filed is the motion to dismiss from earlier this month, arguing Apple failed to describe the trade secrets it claims or to show it owns protectable intellectual property ^[13], and that argument gets decided on the papers by a judge reading definitions. Conduct allegations get decided on credibility instead, which is why Apple's lawyers wrote that the laptop shows the company is "not conducting 'fishing expeditions'" but that its trade secrets are being used and evidence destroyed ^[8]. That sentence is drafted for a judge rationing discovery, not for a headline.

The ratios are the real argument here. Apple's complaint names two individuals, Liu and Chief Hardware Officer Tang Yew Tan ^[11], out of the more than 400 former Apple employees it says now work at OpenAI ^[12], which puts the named defendants at half of one percent of that population ^[18]. The single Apple-issued MacBook at the center of Monday's brief sat outside Apple's control from Liu's January departure to the July complaint, at least six months ^[19], and then took weeks of delay to produce ^[6]. Expedited fact-finding is Apple's request that the other 99.5 percent not be discovered at that rate; from the July complaint to the Oct. 1 hearing is roughly three months ^[20], which is quick for a trade-secret case and only useful if production accelerates.

OpenAI is now spending brief pages on something else entirely. Beyond the definitional argument, it is litigating Apple's own housekeeping: its Monday filing says any documents Liu opened were opened on behalf of Apple employees for Apple work purposes ^[5], and it asks the court to limit any injunction so workers are not restricted from changing jobs ^[7]. Apple attributes the post-departure access to an obscure authentication vulnerability it had not previously identified ^[21], while OpenAI says publicly that residual access "is a common issue with Apple which is caused by them failing to properly manage system access when people leave" ^[22]. Both sides accept that a departed engineer could still reach Apple files, and they are arguing about whose door was open.

The schematic matters less than the June message. A specific circuit schematic can be walled off, and Apple's own remedy list contemplates destroying proprietary materials ^[14], which a hardware team can survive with documentation. A finding that evidence was destroyed, though, colors every discovery dispute that follows, and no amount of engineering fixes that. Three ways it lands: a narrow order tied to identified schematic-derived work, which costs OpenAI paperwork; Apple's requested scope, barring hardware work based on Apple's technology ^[14], which imposes a provenance burden on the device program OpenAI is building with former Apple design chief Jony Ive ^[17]; or dismissal on the trade-secret definition first, in which case the forensics are never weighed ^[13]. The counter-thesis is the one OpenAI is already selling, that this is a single engineer assisting former colleagues ^[5] and industry-standard recruiting ^[10], and if the judge buys it a broad injunction becomes an odd fit for the facts.

The public record here is thin: the newest exhibits are redacted, and what has been seen are earlier text messages Liu punctuated with crying-laughing emojis ^[16]. Monetary damages are the part of Apple's ask that a check can settle ^[14]. The injunction is the part that spends OpenAI's calendar, and Oct. 1 is when that gets priced ^[15].