Apple and leaker Jon Prosser jointly asked a federal court to vacate the default judgment entered against him last October, with Prosser agreeing to turn over documents he had so far failed to fully produce.
Apple filed suit against Prosser and Michael Ramacciotti in July 2025, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets after Prosser posted videos showing recreated renderings of iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design months before Apple’s announcement. According to the complaint, Ramacciotti secretly accessed Apple software engineer Ethan Lipnik’s iPhone and showed Prosser a preliminary version of the software in exchange for payment. Lipnik was later fired.
Prosser missed a deadline to formally respond to the complaint, prompting Apple’s lawyers to file for a default judgment. The court declared default in October 2025, after which Prosser said The edge he was “in active communication with Apple since the beginning of this matter.”
The situation did not improve significantly in the months that followed. A joint status report filed in April showed that Prosser was still not complying with the preliminary investigation, prompting Apple to seek a court order to compel him. The filing indicated that while Prosser provided some relevant documents, he failed to respond fully to some requests and did not respond at all to others.
This contrasted with Ramacciotti, who allowed Apple to forensically examine an additional device, agreed to supplement his answers to questions and offered to sit for a follow-up deposition, with Apple and Ramacciotti informally discussing a potential settlement since at least October.
Prosser did not retain legal counsel until April 14, 2026. According to the joint stipulation filed on June 9, Apple served Prosser with subpoenas in January 2026 seeking documents and a deposition related to its claims against Ramacciotti, but Prosser had not fully responded to the subpoena and requested a deposition.
As part of the agreement, Prosser agreed to produce all documents responding to Apple’s subpoena by June 9, 2026, and to file a deposition no later than June 16, 2026. Apple said it believes setting aside the default is “the most effective way to move this matter forward without further delay.”
The stipulation still requires approval from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. If approved, Prosser would have ten days from the date of the order to file a plea in response to Apple’s complaint, giving him the formal opportunity to contest the allegations for the first time.
