Yesterday evening, TechCrunch reported on a series of new legal filings made by OpenAI in the ioY trademark lawsuit that led to the scrubbing of the ‘io’ brand on OpenAI’s website.
The documents, filed by OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman as well as ex-Apple employees Evans Hankey, Tang Tan, and Marwan Rammah (now all at io Products), reveal as much about the company’s ambitions as they do about what it hopes to keep under wraps. Here are a few key takeaways.
1: iyO tried to hire Evans Hankey
In 2022, iyO CEO Jason Rugolo tried to hire Evans Hankey, while she was still at Apple as VP of Industrial Design.
“In 2022, while I was still employed by Apple, my good friend and former colleague, Steve Zadesky suggested that I speak with Jason Rugolo. (…) During the call, Mr. Rugolo said he was looking for a head of design at his company. At the time, I did not know the name of his company, and he did not tell me. He told me that the company was working on augmented audio technology for the ear with a voice input. He did not mention anything having to do with AI to me. I told him that I was not personally interested (…)”
2: Evans Hankey didn’t leave Apple to go work for Jony Ive
Although it’s commonly believed that Ive’s former lieutenants left Apple to join his firm, LoveFrom, that wasn’t the case for Hankey. Per her own account, nearly a year passed before she came on board full-time:
My last day of work at Apple was in April of 2023. I was ready for a break, and at the time, I did not have plans for what I would do next. But soon after that, while on a shared family vacation with Jony Ive and his family, I began talking to his son Charlie, and eventually Jony, about the exciting developments in AI. Over that summer, Jony and I continued to discuss AI developments, and he invited me to join a new venture he was working on. I was not ready to commit to a full-time position, but I initially agreed to join around October as an advisor to work with Jony and his design collective at LoveFrom. At that time, I understood that OpenAI had the right to use the io.com domain name. By June 2024, I was working at io full time.
3: OpenAI is leading its defense with the fact that it repeatedly received unsolicited information from ioY’s CEO
In its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, OpenAI repeatedly claims that ioY CEO pursued Sam Altman and other executives at OpenAI and io Products, with requests ranging from product demos, to partnerships, to outright investment and acquisition proposals.
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