Posts in Artificial Intelligence

A number of amici have weighed in this week supporting ROSS Intelligence’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit challenging the originality and fair use rulings of the District of Delaware in a copyright infringement case brought by global legal information company, Thomson Reuters. ROSS’s petition for review was granted by the Third Circuit in June.

The author plaintiffs in the high-profile case against AI company, Anthropic, filed a “Supplemental Brief in Support of Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Settlement” on Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The filing addressed outstanding issues following the Court’s initial preliminary approval hearing on September 8, including the plan of distribution.

Disney Enterprises and 11 other plaintiffs filed a complaint last week against Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) image and video generator MiniMax in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The complaint alleged direct and secondary copyright infringement by operating a commercial AI service that “pirates and plunders Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on a massive scale. MiniMax markets Hailuo AI as a ‘Hollywood studio in your pocket.’”

Warner Bros. Entertainment and four other plaintiffs filed their official complaint late last week against artificial intelligence (AI) image generator Midjourney, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The complaint alleged two causes of copyright infringement of characters through its direct and secondary infringement by operating as a commercial subscription service through AI that “brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own.”

The Trump Administration is trying to counter China on nearly every strategic front, from the South China Sea to the factory floor. Yet the Administration, and Congress, haven’t yet done much to address one of America’s biggest vulnerabilities—the steady decline of our once world-class system of intellectual property (IP) rights.

Following a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on August 27 requesting its appeal be held in abeyance, AI company Anthropic has agreed to pay what the plaintiffs are calling “the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history, larger than any other copyright class action settlement or any individual copyright case litigated to final judgment.” According to the “Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Settlement” filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday, Anthropic will pay the plaintiffs, Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, and MJ & KJ, Inc. and the Class “at least $1.5 billion dollars, plus interest,” amounting to about $3,000 per 500,000 works in the Class.

In a Motion for Summary Judgment filed earlier this weekwith the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, AI artist Jason M. Allen requested that the court overturn the Copyright Office’s refusal to register his award-winning image “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” created with the AI system Midjourney. The U.S. Copyright Office Review Board previously denied registration for Allen’s artwork. The Review Board asserted that when AI produces complex works solely from a human prompt, the “traditional elements of authorship” are executed through the technology and not by the human user.

According to a Consent Motion filed Tuesday, August 26, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Anthropic has requested that its petition appealing a district court ruling on class certification and its Emergency Motion to stay district court proceedings pending disposition of that petition both be held in abeyance. The request is based on the execution by both Anthropic and plaintiffs, Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, of “a binding term sheet intended to memorialize the terms of a proposed class settlement.”

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) today announced an agreement with Google for the “Gemini for Government” platformto provide federal agencies with access to Google’s artificial intelligence and cloud services at discounted rates.Gemini is Google’s flagship generative AI chatbot, supporting text, image, video, and code generation across multiple platforms, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Meet. Under the GSA agreement, which is valid through 2026, agencies can access Google’s AI-optimized and accredited commercial cloud services, Gemini models, and agentic capabilities.

In the latest episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ted Wood—a unique figure whose career spans military service, engineering and patent law. After spending time both in-house and at Am Law 100 firms, today Ted is Managing Partner of Wood IP. Our conversation, which took place August 8, was not only interesting and fun but a testament to the diverse pathways one can take to success, both in life and, specifically, in the engineering and patent law fields.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) today released its fourth annual report, titled “Empowering Small Business: The Impact of Technology on U.S. Small Business,” analyzing the important role of technology in small business operations, the unprecedented adoption rates of artificial intelligence (AI), and growing concerns about regulatory compliance. The report surveyed 3,870 U.S. small businesses with fewer than 250 employees between June 6 and June 26, 2025, highlighting how emerging technologies are reshaping America’s entrepreneurial sector.

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge William Alsup on Monday denied Anthropic’s motion to stay proceedings in Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC. Anthropic had sought to pause the case while pursuing appellate review of two rulings, one on fair use and the other on class certification. The order maintains the trial date set for December 1, 2025, and says the case proceedings must continue.

When the framers made provision for copyright law in the U.S. Constitution, they probably didn’t envision a system that favors the wealthy. Yet today, that’s what we’ve got. High litigation costs and slow-moving courts have turned copyright enforcement into a luxury good. Unless you’re sitting on a pile of cash, your rights are often fool’s gold.

Last week, reports surfaced that spokespeople from the European Commission had confirmed the official withdrawal of legislative draft proposals that would have increased the European Union’s (EU) regulatory oversight over both standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing and civil liability of artificial intelligence (AI) products and services. While the decision to abandon these proposals was first made public this February, the EU Commission’s official withdrawal underscores ongoing tensions between the tech lobby and consumer advocates in the AI sector.

Under current law, only natural persons can be inventors on a patent. But as AI systems become more sophisticated and domain-specific, questions emerge about whether the creators of such AI might contribute to the conception of inventions generated with their tools. Consider this scenario: a scientific researcher uses a highly specialized AI model (designed for, say, molecular drug design) to discover a new pharmaceutical compound. The human runs the model, evaluates outputs, and files a patent application claiming the new compound. Is the AI’s developer – who trained and fine-tuned the model to solve such molecular design problems – a silent joint inventor of that compound?