Cue the tiny violins; someone may have stolen something from Apple.

It's a sorry tale, but one the tech giant knows very well. Maybe too well.

Apple's blockbuster lawsuit against OpenAI accuses the ChatGPT maker of orchestrating a campaign to recruit Apple engineers, extract confidential information, and use the company's trade secrets to jump-start its own hardware ambitions.

The allegations are striking. They're also familiar.

Over the years, Apple has itself faced lawsuits from companies accusing it of using remarkably similar tactics: recruiting away key employees and then using their knowledge to build competing products.

Masimo's complaint

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

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

The dispute ultimately expanded into multiple trade-secret and patent cases, as well as an International Trade Commission investigation.

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

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 benefited from confidential battery research.

Apple denied wrongdoing, and the case settled before reaching trial.

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

In California, especially, employees are free to leave their employers whenever they like and work wherever else they please. For Big Tech companies, that's not always great, because — by definition — those experts leave with valuable know-how. That's the whole reason they're hired away.

How or when this crosses over into trade secret theft is murky business, indeed.

A secret pact

Apple has famously exhibited its dislike of free-flowing talent movement across Silicon Valley. In the 2000s, it entered into 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 case stemming from the scandal, The New York Times reported.

The big kahuna

With that option out the window, Apple employees have been freer to move around. In 2019, Apple's most famous employee, iPhone designer Jony Ive, did just that — and started his own company called io Products with other former Apple employees.

Last year, OpenAI acquired io and brought on Ive and his team, including cofounder Tang Tan. Together, they're developing a consumer gadget that may challenge the iPhone and will for sure be better at AI than Apple gadgets — a low bar, but highly likely.

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

That seems odd. If you were going to accuse another company of hiring away your top execs and using their knowledge of your 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, it mentions two: Tang Tan, an io cofounder, 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 well-funded and capable upstart with disruptive new technology.

When Big Tech companies feel secure, they often recruit aggressively from smaller rivals who complain that their ideas or expertise have been appropriated. When those same tech giants find themselves under pressure from an ambitious newcomer, they suddenly become fierce defenders of trade secrets and confidential information.

So Apple probably went digging to see what it could find. So far, it's come up with a couple of former employees who may have taken some ideas with them to OpenAI.

Are these actions trade secret theft, or smart employees exercising their right to work where they please and taking their knowledge with them? That's what Apple argued in the Masimo case.

Whether Apple's allegations 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.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected].