The case

Apple Inc. filed Apple Inc. v. Chang Liu et al. on 10 July 2026 in the Northern District of California, San Jose Division. Docket 5:26-cv-07078-EJD. Judge Edward J. Davila. Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins on discovery.

Defendants: Chang Liu; Tang Yew Tan; OpenAI Foundation (f/k/a OpenAI, Inc.); OpenAI Group PBC; io Products, LLC (f/k/a io Products, Inc.). Claims: Defend Trade Secrets Act against each class of defendant, plus Intellectual Property Agreement breach against Liu and Tan.

What follows is the public chronology Apple reconstructs in its complaint (Dkt. 1) and 31 August forensic supplement (Dkt. 94-1, with Roffman and Fayed declarations), set against what defendants put in the 5 August motion to dismiss (Dkt. 59) and 31 August preliminary-injunction opposition (Dkt. 97). No court has ruled on the merits. Dates below are as alleged in those papers unless noted as docket entries.

2024-2025. Tan leaves. io merges into OpenAI.

Tang Yew Tan spent about 24 years at Apple, most recently VP Product Design for iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple's complaint says Apple "entrusted Mr. Tan with its most sensitive projects, trusted partner relationships, proprietary manufacturing techniques, and unreleased products" (Compl. ¶ 8).

Tan co-founded io Products with other former Apple leaders in the Jony Ive / LoveFrom orbit. OpenAI announced a roughly $6.5 billion acquisition / merge of io in 2025. Tan became OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer.

The parties dispute when Tan first met OpenAI. The complaint frames contacts as beginning months before he left Apple (¶ 9). Tan's later declaration in the PI opposition says his first OpenAI meeting was 8 March 2024, after he had left. That conflict is unresolved on this docket.

January 2026. Liu leaves. Apple says the exit never closed.

Chang Liu, Apple Senior System Electrical Engineer for about eight years, left for OpenAI in January 2026.

Apple says it contacted him to sign a confidentiality reminder, schedule an exit interview, and confirm return of devices. "Mr. Liu did not respond" (Compl. ¶¶ 4, 56).

The complaint's device track starts here:

  • After leaving, Liu allegedly failed to return an Apple-issued work laptop.
  • Messages Apple later recovered from an Apple-issued laptop quote him: "I still have another computer" he planned to use to access Apple confidential information so he could discuss it that evening with Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng, then still at Apple (Compl. ¶¶ 6, 56-57).
  • He allegedly used Peng's Apple-issued work computer, still authenticated to Apple's network.
  • He allegedly exploited a then-unknown authentication vulnerability that left third-party cloud storage reachable after departure. Rather than reporting it, Apple says, he celebrated with Peng: "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny." Peng's reply, as quoted: "I'm ready." (Compl. ¶ 57.)

Defendants' motion to dismiss later frames post-departure access as helping Apple colleagues who contacted him, and as leftover logins Apple failed to cut (Dkt. 59). That is their pleading. It is not a finding.

February 2026. Apple writes OpenAI. The 9 February network-storage texts.

On or around 9 February 2026, weeks after leaving, Apple says Liu used Peng's authenticated Apple work computer, found he could still reach network storage, and sent the "LOL" / "so funny" exchange (Compl. ¶ 57).

Paragraph 14: in February, while the investigation was early, Apple wrote OpenAI raising concern that confidentials might be flowing into OpenAI's business and asking OpenAI to investigate and remediate. "OpenAI never responded," the complaint states.

Defendants' MTD (Dkt. 59) says Apple omits that outside counsel emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names, and that specific allegations were not teed up. Apple's later opposition to dismissal (Dkt. 89) dates a February 23, 2026 letter. The letter itself is not fully in the public complaint PDF set used here. What it said, word for word, is UNKNOWN.

March 2026. Folder check, then an LTspice run at 5:47:59 p.m. PT.

7 March (allegation / defendants' framing, not the LTspice clock). Apple alleges Liu downloaded confidential files from Apple third-party cloud storage while employed at OpenAI, including material labeled confidential, and shared findings with Peng while she was still at Apple (Compl.; Apple's later supplement). Defendants' PI opposition (Dkt. 97) describes 7 March as Liu checking a folder path for simulation files so he could share it with a still-Apple colleague who had asked about running simulations. Do not read 7 March as the Roffman LTspice forensic timestamp. That clock is 18 March.

18 March 2026, 5:47:59 p.m. PT (Roffman declaration, Dkt. 94-2 ¶18). Apple's August forensic supplement says an LTspice simulation ran under user profile changliu. The .raw output file, Roffman states, recorded the exact time the LTspice simulation was run as 5:47:59 p.m. PT on March 18, 2026, and the file path used to run it, which included the user profile name "changliu." Companion .log / .net / .raw files timestamp that run. Apple says the circuit is a confidential Apple power-converter schematic (filename redacted in the public PDF).

Same-day iMessages: Roffman's public declaration text (¶31) quotes those messages only in part, that an AI agent "learned how to run" the simulation. Research notes summarize additional strings from Apple's sealed Roffman Exhibit A iMessage images ("Feeling AI all day long"; a behavioral buck with voltage outer and current inner loops, plus fuller "learned how to run LTspice / tune compensation parameter" wording). Those fuller strings are not fully OCR'd in the local Roffman/supplement text extracts used here, so the exact sealed-image wording remains UNKNOWN on this OCR set.

Dr. Ayman Fayed's declaration (Dkt. 94-3) is Apple's expert read of those simulation files. Defendants have not, in the public papers reviewed here, put on a competing forensic report of the MacBook that adopts Apple's trade-secret framing.

11 April (Roffman ¶11 / ¶19). Files in Liu's iCloud Drive on the MacBook were added to that computer on 11 April 2026 through iCloud synchronization. Based on the version_device_name field associated with the .log, .net, and .raw related files, Roffman determined those files were added to iCloud Drive from a computer named "Mac Mini," not the MacBook. As of the 31 August brief, Apple said it had not examined the Mac Mini.

April 2026. Peng leaves. Liu's coaching of Tan's questions.

Peng departed Apple for OpenAI in April 2026.

Complaint paragraphs 64-65: messages on Apple-issued devices show Liu telling Peng that another ex-Apple interviewee "fumbled" answers Tang Tan asked about "a top-secret project for an unreleased new Apple product." Liu then allegedly coached her on confidential material to study, "on information and belief" using illicit network access to download information "for Ms. Peng's review."

This is the hinge between the device track and the interview track. It is still allegation.

The interview track (overlapping 2024-2026; pleaded 10 July)

Complaint paragraphs 9-11 and 69-75:

Tan, interviewing still-employed Apple candidates for OpenAI, "has used an Apple internal project codename to ask, 'What's the plan[?]' for an unannounced Apple product." He "has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring 'Actual parts' from Apple to their interviews for 'show and tell.'" At least one candidate, Apple quotes, "didn't even know we could take those from the office."

Paragraph 70: messages on an Apple work device, Apple says, show Tan telling an employee to "bring some parts [she] worked on" such as "Batteries," "SIP" (Systems-in-Package), "mlb" (main logic boards), and "shields," and that it may "be good to show" other interviewers those components. Paragraph 75(c) adds "piece parts," "housings and BGs [back glass] in different colours."

Paragraph 69: in the hours before an interview with Tan, a then-Apple employee allegedly began screenshotting and downloading files on a highly confidential project; in the interview, Tan allegedly solicited more on that same project. "This has become an established pattern."

OpenAI as an institution, paragraph 10: bring "CAD/design artifacts" and "prototypes"; discuss subsystem and component selection, CAD/simulation tools, vendor selection.

Exit coaching, paragraphs 11 and 84: warn hires not to tell Apple they are going to OpenAI; circulate an internal Apple managers' document marked "Need to Know" before they give notice; "won't sign anything at the exit interview"; if asked to sign, tell OpenAI "asap"; avoid the "dreaded walk out."

The complaint's ¶ 7 line that misconduct ran "at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer" is Apple's allegation in the pleading, not a press paraphrase.

June 2026. "Restore" / "start using"

After Liu allegedly learned of Apple's internal investigation, Apple's August supplement quotes June messages with Peng about "restore" then "start using" Apple-owned devices (Dkt. 94-1; Roffman Exs. C-D / ¶¶ 25-26). Apple characterizes that as anti-forensic overwrite. Defendants contest the interpretation in Dkt. 97 and later in Dkt. 143. No court has adopted either reading.

Latest observed use of the later-examined MacBook, in Apple's preliminary forensic timeline: 3 July 2026 (Roffman ¶12).

10 July 2026. Complaint.

Weil Gotshal and Desmarais file. Six counts. Jury demand. The public paper now exists. The recruiting track and the leftover-device track are in the same filing. They are not the same incident. Apple presents them as one pattern: former Apple hardware people at OpenAI, Apple confidentials as the medium.

3-5 August 2026. Injunction, discovery, dismissal, and OpenAI's public post.

  • 3 Aug: Apple preliminary-injunction motion (Dkt. 38). Same day, OpenAI publishes "Apple is getting this wrong": the lawsuit is "careless, aggressive and oddly personal"; "Tang has always been clear with the team that we do not want, and must not use, any confidential information from other companies."
  • 4 Aug: Apple motion for expedited discovery (Dkt. 49). Justia's public docket shows the PI and expedited-discovery motions noticed for hearing 1 October 2026, 9:00 a.m., San Jose, Courtroom 4, before Judge Davila.
  • 5 Aug: Defendants' motion to dismiss (Dkt. 59). Interview theory = ordinary recruiting. Tan "repeatedly instructed" recruits not to bring former employers' confidentials. Out of "over four hundred" ex-Apple employees Apple says are at OpenAI, Apple identifies a handful of questions. "Actual parts" ask, defendants say, is not pleaded as Tan receiving or retaining a secret part. Surrounding messages they say show "shipped" / public parts. Codenames appear on public lists. Need-to-Know checklist equally consistent with helping new hires follow Apple exit rules.

19 August 2026. Apple's opposition to dismissal.

Dkt. 89: Tan "did not ask candidates to bring parts anyone can buy; he directed a then-Apple employee to bring 'some parts [she] worked on'" such as batteries, mlb, and shields, "internal components from her confidential Apple work, for 'show and tell' before the OpenAI hardware team." "No one needs 'show and tell' for consumer products that are widely available." On a message that "piece parts of a shipped product is ok too. some folks have done that": Apple argues if "some folks" limited themselves to shipped parts, others did not. Hours-before-interview downloads, Apple says, are not "consumer products in the public domain."

The specific product codename is redacted in the public opposition.

21-31 August 2026. The laptop comes back.

  • 21 Aug: Liu's counsel's vendor (Sync Forensics) delivers the MacBook to Apple forensic expert Daniel Roffman / CRA.
  • 24 Aug: Forensic image.
  • 26 Aug: Preliminary findings to Apple.
  • 31 Aug: Apple supplemental brief in support of expedited discovery (Dkt. 94-1) plus Roffman (94-2) and Fayed (94-3) declarations. Four bullets Apple wants the court to take from the image: (1) Liu not only downloaded a schematic but used it in LTspice at OpenAI; (2) Liu and others were aware of unauthorized cloud access, not innocent leftover sync; (3) after learning of the investigation, Liu sent destroy-evidence instructions to Peng; (4) Liu used a tool at OpenAI with the same name as an internal Apple engineering application. Apple argues feeding a trade secret into an AI agent may create "irreversible and continually propagating uses" (citing Roffman ¶31; Fayed ¶26). Relief sought includes imaging the Mac Mini. The caption on 94-1 still lists Hearing Date: Oct. 1, 2026.
  • Same day: Defendants' PI opposition (Dkt. 97) plus declarations from Tan, Hutchinson, Lampton, and "Individual No. 1." Consumer Hardware, they say, tells candidates not to bring confidentials; may bring components of publicly available products. Apple's CAD/prototype language, they say, comes from a generic Robotics pre-interview guide not used for Consumer Hardware. Tan Decl.: one candidate offered "shipped batteries"; another would check for "non-AOU units" (non-Apple-Owned Units). Individual No. 1: Tan asked about the leadership hole the candidate would leave at Apple; no codename was used; pre-interview screenshots were routine Keynote work, unrelated to OpenAI.

September 2026. The clock moves to 14 October.

  • 11 Sep: Defendants respond to Apple's supplemental expedited-discovery brief (Dkt. 143). The caption on that brief still lists Hearing Date: Oct. 1, 2026. Defendants dispute Apple's forensic characterizations, including the Mac Mini / AI-agent / "restore" readings, and argue there is no good cause for expedited discovery.
  • 14 Sep: Desk notes cite a status-conference minute entry (about 40 minutes) continuing the 1 October hearing on the PI, expedited discovery, and MTD to 14 October 2026, 9:00 a.m., San Jose; the CMC moves with it. The public RECAP PDF set used here does not include that minute-entry PDF (Dkt. 146 filed the same day is a certificate of service, not the continuance). CourtListener HTML may 403 from this environment; the CourtListener docket remains the citation for the continued date.

Until that hearing, the public paper is Apple's device-derived quotes, defendants' declarations, and a sealed exhibit set.

What this chronology does not settle

  • Exact sealed Roffman Exhibit A iMessage wording for "Feeling AI all day long" / behavioral-buck lines (not fully OCR'd in the local text extract). UNKNOWN on this OCR set.
  • Whether any candidate carried a confidential Apple part into an OpenAI interview room. Apple alleges the direction. Completed delivery of a secret part is not clearly a finding, or even a fully pleaded completed transfer, in the public complaint text. UNKNOWN.
  • Whether the Mac Mini has been produced or imaged since 31 August. UNKNOWN on the papers used here.
  • The schematic filename (redacted). Whether the .asc is a protectable trade secret (defendants dispute).
  • The February letter's exact text and addressee. UNKNOWN.
  • Whether "restore" / "start using" is evidence destruction or ordinary device use. Contested.
  • Whether Tan's "shipped" / "non-AOU" texts cover every alleged ask, including CAD and prototypes.
  • Whether interview solicitation, standing alone, is DTSA misappropriation. That is for Davila.
  • Liability. Judge Davila has not ruled. Merits: UNKNOWN.

Two files, one docket. Device misuse is how Apple says it found the story. Interview "show and tell" is how Apple says OpenAI's hardware chief ran recruiting. The August MacBook image is how Apple says Liu used a schematic at OpenAI, including via an agent. Keep the three sequences dated. Do not merge them into one incident.