OpenAI Disputes Two Claims in Apple's Lawsuit

OpenAI called Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit "careless, aggressive and oddly personal" in a post responding to the July 10 complaint, disputing two of the claims at its center.

The suit centers on trade secrets tied to former Apple engineers. OpenAI disputes two claims: that it ignored a February outreach from Apple's outside counsel, and that Apple's lawyers spoke with its General Counsel.

OpenAI says the February claim was withdrawn after Apple's outside counsel conceded it had emailed the wrong recipient. It says the described conversation with its General Counsel never took place at all, per its post.

The rebuttal drew fast attention on Hacker News: 221 points and 213 comments within six hours. The dominant reaction wasn't about who's right on the underlying trade-secrets claims. It was that airing a corporate legal fight in a company blog post reads as unprofessional, regardless of which side has the facts.

OpenAI won the factual argument and lost the professionalism argument in the same post. Its own readers flagged the second one before the first had time to sink in. The post only gives OpenAI's account. It doesn't include Apple's response to the specific corrections, so what happens to the case itself is still unclear.