Apple v. OpenAI: What the Injunction Requests Actually Seek — and What Comes Next in Case 5:26-cv-07078

Forty-eight hours after Apple filed suit against OpenAI, the docket in Apple Inc. v. Liu (5:26-cv-07078, Northern District of California) already answers two questions that public conversation tends to blur: what injunctive relief Apple has actually requested, and which dates come next. The first answer needs an important precision: no injunction motion appears on the public docket yet. What exists is a complaint (ECF No. 1, 41 pages, filed July 10) that requests those measures in its prayer for relief and announces, in footnote 14, that the formal motion will come "promptly."

What Apple is asking for, point by point

The complaint's prayer for relief lists thirteen requests. Four define the injunctive artillery:

• A preliminary and permanent injunction against all five defendants — former Apple employees Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC and io Products — and anyone acting in concert with them, "to prevent the actual or threatened misappropriation of Apple's trade secrets."
• Another barring them from "possessing, using, or disclosing" Apple's trade secrets and confidential information.
• A preliminary injunction against "altering, destroying, or disposing of any evidence," expressly naming emails, electronic documents, metadata and directories.
• An order to return all Apple property in the defendants' possession and to cease any access to it.

The rest of the prayer is monetary and declaratory: damages for actual loss, disgorgement of unjust enrichment, a reasonable royalty as an alternative, exemplary damages for "willful and malicious" misappropriation, interest, and attorneys' fees under the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

One nuance matters for the hardware OpenAI is building with io Products: the complaint does not ask to block any device launch. It asks to cut off the use of the secrets on which, according to Apple, that development rests (paragraph 129 alleges io "is deploying" Apple's trade secrets "to develop and commercialize hardware devices for OpenAI"). If the court granted an injunction in those terms, its practical effect on the device would depend on how much of that work — if any — the court finds rests on Apple's information. That is precisely what the case will have to sort out.

TRO and preliminary injunction, in plain language

Interim relief in U.S. federal courts comes in two speeds, both governed by Rule 65. A TRO (temporary restraining order) is the emergency order: it lasts at most 14 days and can be issued even without hearing the other side. A preliminary injunction is the provisional measure on the merits: it requires an adversarial hearing and, if granted, holds for the duration of the litigation. To win one, the moving party must persuade the court of four things: likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm without it, a balance of hardships tipping its way, and no harm to the public interest.

Apple has not taken the emergency route. It chose to announce a preliminary injunction motion, and the complaint itself explains why it needed a courtroom: Liu's employment contract contains an arbitration clause "with a clear exception for seeking preliminary injunctive relief in court." The DTSA, the 2016 federal trade secrets statute behind four of the six claims, expressly authorizes such orders.

The calendar already on the docket

ECF No. 9, also dated July 10, sets the first milestones. The case is assigned to Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi in San Jose. A federal magistrate judge can take a civil case all the way to judgment only if every party consents: the parties have until July 24, 2026 to consent or decline. If any of them declines — common in litigation of this size — the case will be reassigned to a district judge.

The same entry announces a scheduling order (the case's overall calendar) "within two business days" — around Tuesday the 14th — and makes Apple responsible for serving the five defendants, none of whom has appeared yet. Apple has also demanded a jury trial.

Two signals will set the immediate pace. First, the filing of the injunction motion Apple has announced: there it will have to support with evidence — sworn declarations, digital forensics — what the complaint tells as narrative, and OpenAI will get its first chance to answer in court. For now, its only response is public, not procedural: "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets." Second, July 24: that day we will learn which judge will steer one of the most delicate lawsuits of the AI era. Everything else, for now, is one side's allegations, which the court has yet to examine.