By PYMNTS | October 14, 2026
Apple and OpenAI were due in court Wednesday (Oct. 14) to argue for and against the merits of the iPhone maker’s trade secrets case against the artificial intelligence startup, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
This is the first major public hearing in the high-profile lawsuit, according to the report. It could show how credible senior federal judge Edward J. Davila finds Apple’s case. The hearing is on two motions. One is by Apple, which wants an injunction to block OpenAI from accessing or using its trade secrets, or from deleting or concealing evidence. The other, from OpenAI, seeks to have the case dismissed.
Apple and OpenAI partnered in 2024 to embed ChatGPT into the iPhone operating system, although that relationship has since soured.
We’d love to be your preferred source for news.
Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!
Hundreds of ex-Apple workers have taken jobs with OpenAI, which is working on a personal AI device. The startup last year paid $6.4 billion to acquire io, the hardware company founded by former Apple design lead Jony Ive.
Now, Apple is claiming that OpenAI and two former Apple employees stole trade secrets, such as confidential product designs and proprietary information about its manufacturing processes. OpenAI contends that the iPhone maker filed a meritless lawsuit.
“This dispute is a mess of Apple’s own making, and it is trying to blame everyone else,” OpenAI said in a court filing in August. “Apple blames employees who left the company for taking their personal accounts with them—even though Apple encouraged them to use personal accounts for work.”
In other Apple news, the company this week unveiled its new line of smart home accessories. It’s a move that could help drive revenue for the company’s crucial services businesses, according to analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives.
“Apple also disclosed that server-side Apple Intelligence features carry daily usage limits, with expanded access to come for a fee, which we view as a clear signal that paid Siri AI access is on the way and a building block of the AI monetization we believe could drive an additional 15%+ of Services revenues over the next few years,” Ives wrote.
PYMNTS reported last month that all of Apple’s recent and future product launches have been engineered to support the argument that because Apple controls the hardware, operating system and customer data, it’s the best-poised company to provide AI.
For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI newsletter.