OpenAI has officially requested that a federal judge throw out the trade secrets lawsuit brought against it by Apple. The tech giant had accused the AI firm of poaching two former employees to systematically gain access to proprietary information, allegedly using that stolen data to jumpstart its own hardware projects. In its recent court filing, OpenAI pushed back firmly against these claims, labeling the accusations as baseless and arguing that its technological goals are entirely distinct from Apple’s product roadmap.

Defense attorneys for OpenAI emphasized that the company has no interest in, nor any need for, Apple’s confidential trade secrets to drive its innovation. They framed their recruitment strategy as a standard industry practice, noting that they are simply attracting top-tier talent who are eager to work on the groundbreaking projects currently being developed at OpenAI. According to the motion, the company’s focus remains on building something fundamentally new, rather than leveraging the intellectual property of competitors to gain a market advantage.