Apple, OpenAI agree to proposed safeguards for confidential information in legal dispute
Apple Inc. and OpenAI have jointly asked a US federal court to approve a proposed order to protect confidential business information, trade secrets and other sensitive material shared during their ongoing legal dispute.
The parties filed the 39-page proposed order on October 21 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division. The case is Apple Inc. v. Chang Liu et al., case number 5:26-cv-07078-EJD. The filing also covers individual defendants Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC and io Products LLC.
Under the proposed rules, protected material could be used only to bring, defend or try to settle this legal case. It could not be used for other legal cases, patent applications or business and competitive activities unrelated to the dispute.
The proposed order sets different levels of confidentiality: “Confidential”, “Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only” and “Extremely Sensitive and Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only”. It also creates a separate category for highly confidential hardware prototypes.
The highest level of protection covers sensitive material such as computer code, formulas, engineering details, technical drawings and plans for products or features that have not yet been released. These materials may show how software or hardware is designed. According to the proposed order, sharing this information could cause major financial harm or put a party at a serious competitive disadvantage.
The filing also limits who can access sensitive material. Some highly restricted information could be seen only by authorised outside lawyers and approved experts who follow specific safety rules. Extremely sensitive information would generally have to be reviewed on a secure computer in a secured room, with no internet access or network connection to other computers. The proposed rules also limit copying, transferring or recording this material.
A separate rule covers physical prototypes. They would have to be viewed in a secured room and could not be taken away, photographed, filmed or copied in any other way that could reproduce or send images of their physical or digital features.
The proposed order also says that protected material cannot automatically be kept secret in court records. Anyone who wants to file such material under seal must follow the court’s local rules and get an order allowing that specific material to remain sealed.
The filing is a proposed order that the parties have jointly submitted for the court’s approval.