Apple has sued OpenAI and two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, in the Northern District of California, alleging misappropriation of hardware trade secrets covering product designs, manufacturing processes and supply-chain strategies. The allegation that makes this case different is that OpenAI directed the misappropriation rather than passively benefitting from it. These remain allegations, and OpenAI denies having interest in other companies’ trade secrets. General knowledge versus trade secretsEmployees can take their general knowledge and skills to a new employer. Apple alleges that Liu kept a company laptop, exploited an authentication vulnerability to access Apple’s network after leaving and downloaded dozens of confidential hardware files, allegedly joking in messages about the access.