美國聯邦法官批准 Apple 在涉 OpenAI 商業秘密案中加快部分證據開示

A federal judge on October 13, 2026 granted Apple limited expedited discovery in its trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI, ordering the defendants to produce forensic device images, materials used to interview Apple job candidates, and private messages between two figures in the dispute.

Discovery the Court Granted

Judge Edward J. Davila of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted in part Apple’s motion in Apple Inc. v. Liu, the San Jose case naming former Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI Foundation and OpenAI Group PBC, and io Products LLC. The defendants must respond to three document requests within 14 days, or within 5 days for materials already collected in the litigation.

The first request covers all forensic images the defendants have collected in connection with the subject matter of Apple’s claims, including images identified in exhibits to the August 31, 2026 and September 11, 2026 declarations of Andrew Crain, or otherwise relied on by Crain.

The second request, as modified by the court, requires production of all documents used to guide or conduct interviews of candidates from Apple for OpenAI’s Consumer Hardware Products Group (including its Consumer Hardware Product Group and Robotics Group), including checklists, guides, instructions, manuals, and scripts. Also covered are Technical Deep Dive presentations or other technical presentations summarizing or memorializing the content of those interviews with Apple employees, or any reference to Apple technology or parts.

The third request requires Liu to produce all conversations on the LINE messaging app between him and Yu-Ting (“Alyssa”) Peng since January 1, 2026, including the conversations containing the messages cited in Liu’s August 31, 2026 declaration and its attached exhibit.

Davila granted Apple the depositions of Liu, Tan, and Peng, to occur within 30 days after Apple receives all responses to the permitted requests. He also granted a corporate-designee deposition of OpenAI Foundation (formerly OpenAI, Inc.), OpenAI Group PBC, and io Products LLC (formerly io Products, Inc.) on the positions, roles, and responsibilities within OpenAI of the designated witnesses, Tan, Liu, Peng, and a redacted individual, subject to the same 30-day window.

Requests Denied or Deferred

The court denied expedited treatment of Apple’s request for all documents related to OpenAI research and development on metal finishes, power management, or battery functionality for consumer hardware products, finding it better suited to ordinary merits discovery. It also denied, for now, Apple’s request to depose a fourth individual listed in its narrowed requests.

Davila deferred ruling on all requests and deposition topics incorporating the term “Apple Originated Information,” which he found amorphous as currently defined. If Apple intends to pursue those requests, it must confer with the defendants and submit a more tailored definition within five days for the court to evaluate.

The judge declined to hold that the permitted depositions come in addition to the deposition limits in the federal rules, writing that the court will entertain future motions to exceed those limits as necessary. Finding the motion suitable for disposition without oral argument under the district’s local rules, he vacated the hearing that had been scheduled for October 14, 2026.

The Lawsuit Behind the Motion

Apple filed its complaint on July 10, 2026, and the case was reassigned to Davila on July 23, 2026, according to the case docket. The complaint alleges trade secret misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, the federal trade-secret statute, and breach of the individual defendants’ Intellectual Property Agreements.

As recited in the ruling, Apple alleges that an investigation uncovered a pattern of trade secret theft by former Apple employees now working at OpenAI, including use of Apple’s proprietary information to assist OpenAI’s hardware development, to gain insider knowledge during interviews of Apple employees considering jobs at OpenAI, and to instruct new OpenAI hires on avoiding scrutiny when they leave Apple. Apple further alleges the corporate defendants acted in concert as an enterprise exploiting its confidential information to advance OpenAI’s efforts to enter the consumer hardware market.

Apple sought expedited discovery on August 4, 2026, after moving for a preliminary injunction on August 3, 2026. The defendants opposed the discovery motion on August 18, Apple replied on August 25, and Apple filed a supplemental brief on August 31 presenting its forensic expert’s review of Liu’s MacBook, to which the defendants responded September 11 with their own expert’s findings, the docket entries show. After a September 14 status conference, the parties filed a joint submission containing Apple’s narrowed requests on September 18, 2026.

The Court’s Good-Cause Analysis

The order applies the Ninth Circuit’s good-cause standard, which weighs whether a preliminary injunction is pending, the breadth of the requests, their purpose, the burden of compliance, and how far in advance of the typical discovery process the request came.

On the first factor, the court agreed with Apple that because forensic images of Liu’s devices had become a prominent component of the pending preliminary-injunction motion, at least some of the requested discovery bore a clear relationship to that motion. It rejected the defendants’ argument, built on Liu’s January 2026 departure from Apple, that Apple’s delay in seeking relief alone justified denial.

On breadth and burden, the court found the narrowed requests remained broad, pointing to the “Apple Originated Information” definition and the research-and-development request. It agreed with the defendants that some requests were sweeping enough that their suggestion that Apple meant to rummage through a competitor’s files was not entirely frivolous, while noting Apple had already supplied a preliminary trade-secret identification.

The order recounts the parties’ competing forensic positions without weighing them at this stage: Apple’s expert concluded Liu used an Apple trade-secret file in March 2026 and told Peng in June 2026 to have Apple-issued devices restored and to start using them more, while the defendants’ expert found no evidence Liu used the file in connection with any AI platform, and the defendants stressed that Apple does not argue anything was actually deleted or restored. The court credited Apple’s position that forensic artifacts such as logs, metadata, and usage records are transient and at risk of loss, and agreed early discovery is needed to uncover the scope of any alleged misappropriation, quoting the joint submission’s warning that the alleged secrets could become “so deeply entangled with OpenAI’s hardware products or other research and development efforts that the harm cannot be undone.”

The court found the request was not made significantly in advance of the typical discovery process and concluded that good cause supported granting a more limited version of Apple’s narrowed requests.