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In one of the first lawsuits to allege that generative AI companies violate the U.S. Copyright Act by using copyrighted works to train machine learning models, Judge Stephanos Bibas of the Delaware Circuit Court recently denied the majority of issues raised in cross motions for summary judgment filed by plaintiff Thomson Reuters and defendant Ross Intelligence Inc.  The court declined to issue a dispositive ruling on the hot-button question of whether the fair use doctrine protects generative AI companies that use copyrighted materials to train their programs.

Thomson Reuters (owner of Westlaw) sued Ross Intelligence, a legal-research generative AI startup, in May 2020, alleging that Ross was liable for both copyright infringement and tortious interference with contract.  The allegations against Ross stem from its endeavor to create a search engine that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide answers to commonly asked legal questions.

In need of material to train its generative AI, Ross attempted to obtain a license to use Westlaw.  When Westlaw turned Ross away, it asked third-party legal research companies to provide it with legal material — much of which those legal research companies obtained from Westlaw.  Thomson Reuters contends that Ross copied large portions of Westlaw’s Headnotes and Key Number System.Continue Reading AI Versus Westlaw Copyright Bellwether Hurtles Toward Jury as Summary Judgment Largely Denied

This is the second in a series of blog articles relating to the topics to be discussed at the 30th Annual Media and the Law Seminar in Kansas City, Missouri on May 4–5, 2017. Blaine C. Kimrey and Bryan K. Clark of Vedder Price are on the planning committee for the conference. In this article, we discuss a recent Ninth Circuit decision relating to the summary judgment standard for a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) affirmative defense. The ins and outs of the DMCA will be among of the topics at the 2017 seminar.

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling that will make it more difficult for Internet service providers to rely on the DMCA safe harbor to prevail at the summary judgment stage. In Mavrix Photographs, LLC v. LiveJournal, Inc., Case No. 14-56596 (9th Cir. April 7, 2017), the court overturned the district court’s summary judgment finding for the defendant, ruling that the common law of agency applied and there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the moderators at issue in this case were “agents” of the defendant. This finding will make summary judgment harder to achieve for Internet service providers and may make them rethink the roles that moderators play in assessing content on their Web sites.
Continue Reading DMCA and monitoring – damned if you do, damned if you don’t?

Change bulb idea to money with smartphone

On December 6, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., v. Apple Inc., 580 U.S. ____ (2016), unanimously ruled that in multicomponent products, the “article of manufacture” subject to an award of damages under 35 U.S.C. §289 is not required to be the end product sold to consumers but may only be a component of the product.

In 2007, when Apple launched the iPhone, it had secured several design patents in connection with the launch. When Samsung released a series of smartphones resembling the iPhone, Apple sued Samsung, alleging that the various Samsung smartphones infringed Apple’s design patents. A jury found that several Samsung smartphones did infringe those patents. Apple was awarded $399 million in damages for Samsung’s design patent infringement, the entire profit Samsung made from its sales of the infringing smartphones. The Federal Circuit affirmed the damages award, rejecting Samsung’s argument that damages should be limited because the relevant articles of manufacture were the front face or screen rather than the entire smartphone.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Revisits Design Patent Damages

The symbol of copyright protection. Seal and imprintAs of December 1, 2016, the Copyright Office requires that each online service provider designate an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement as required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by the Office’s new online system, located here: https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/p1.html. This online registration system and corresponding electronically generated directory replace the Office’s old paper-based system and directory. As a result, the Office will no longer accept paper designations, and service providers that appointed agents under the old paper-based system must submit a new designation under the new online system by December 31, 2017 in order to maintain its safe harbor1 from copyright infringement.

The DMCA includes provisions directed to copyright infringement on the Internet, notice and takedown procedures for copyright owners to report claimed infringement and safe harbors from copyright infringement liability for online service providers. Generally, online service providers are considered to be any provider of online services or network access, such as, Internet service providers, websites, hosting companies, mobile app publishers, others that allow users to post or store material on their systems, and search engines, directories, and other information location tools, etc.
Continue Reading Online Service Providers – Important Update – Copyright Safe Harbor