On March 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for a writ of certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 25-449, ending a multi-year effort to secure copyright protection for a work, “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,”...more
3/9/2026
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Authorship ,
Certiorari ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Copyright Office ,
Copyright Registration ,
Copyrightable Subject Matter ,
Denial of Certiorari ,
Emerging Technologies ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
The Copyright Act
In a ruling with major implications for AI companies navigating copyright litigation, a federal judge in a copyright action against OpenAI has drawn a bright line between denying wrongdoing and inviting discovery into...more
2/16/2026
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Crime-Fraud Exception ,
Discovery ,
Document Productions ,
Fair Use ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
Privilege Waivers ,
Privileged Communication ,
Willful Infringement
Less than a year after holding that generic machine-learning patents are abstract in Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., the Federal Circuit may be refining where to draw the line on patent eligibility....more
2/5/2026
/ Abstract Ideas ,
Alice/Mayo ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
CAFC ,
Claim Construction ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Machine Learning ,
Natural Language Processing ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Section 101 ,
Software
This year, intellectual property (IP) law and policy directly addressed the realities of generative artificial intelligence (AI). With a new director at the helm, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued new...more
1/23/2026
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Innovation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Machine Learning ,
New Guidance ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Software Patents ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
Last week, the Northern District of California untethered Alphabet from Google in a copyright infringement action, while Google will continue to face certain infringement claims. The court made clear that ordinary...more
9/19/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Governance ,
Google ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Machine Learning ,
Online Platforms ,
Technology Sector ,
Vicarious Liability
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 30-year-old tool enacted to address the copyright implications of disrupting technologies, like Napster and Limewire, in the late 1990s, has found new utility in the age of AI....more
9/2/2025
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DMCA ,
Emerging Technologies ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Machine Learning ,
Pleading Standards ,
Software ,
Standing
In a July IP Hot Topic, we wrote about a pivotal summary judgment ruling in Bartz v. Anthropic that added another data point in the newly forming fair use landscape for copyright actions against GenAI companies. In that case,...more
8/29/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Authorship ,
Books ,
Class Action ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Damages ,
Fair Use ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Machine Learning ,
Piracy ,
Settlement ,
Summary Judgment ,
Transformative Use
2025 Summer Associate Wade Marshall contributed to this article.
Recently, two Northern District of California decisions revealed fault lines in the forming fair use terrain for GenAI copyright infringement actions. Both...more
Sterne Kessler’s U.S. IP Update is a newsletter delivering the latest developments in U.S. intellectual property law, tailored for companies and legal counsel in Korea. Stay informed on key court decisions, policy changes,...more
6/25/2025
/ Appeals ,
CAFC ,
Contract Terms ,
Damages ,
Expert Testimony ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
USPTO
Some of the largest movie studios have entered the fray of GenAI copyright litigation. Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and DreamWorks sued the image-GenAI company Midjourney, Inc. in the...more
6/16/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Damages ,
Entertainment Industry ,
Fair Use ,
Film Industry ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Machine Learning ,
Plagiarism ,
The Copyright Act ,
Willful Infringement
Last week, in EcoFactor, Inc. v. Google LLC, the Federal Circuit issued its first en banc decision in a utility patent case in several years. The case involves the gatekeeping function of district courts vis-à-vis expert...more
5/28/2025
/ Appeals ,
Appellate Courts ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Damages ,
Daubert Standards ,
En Banc Review ,
Expert Testimony ,
Expert Witness ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Rule of Evidence 702 ,
Utility Patents
Sterne Kessler’s U.S. IP Update is a newsletter delivering the latest developments in U.S. intellectual property law, tailored for companies and legal counsel in Korea. Stay informed on key court decisions, policy changes,...more
5/22/2025
/ Alice/Mayo ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
FRAND ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
IP License ,
Machine Learning ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Software ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Unified Patent Court
On Friday, April 18, 2025, the Federal Circuit addressed a question of first impression regarding the validity of certain machine-learning patents under Section 101 in Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., et al.,...more
On Tuesday, February 11, a Delaware district court issued much-awaited summary-judgment decisions in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH et al v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., No. 1:20-cv-613, potentially shaping how future...more
2/13/2025
/ Algorithms ,
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc v Goldsmith ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Fair Use ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal Technology ,
Machine Learning ,
Summary Judgment ,
Technology Sector
FDA recently issued two draft guidance documents discussing: (1) the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce information to support a regulatory decision about a drug or biological product’s safety, effectiveness, or...more
1/15/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Biologics ,
Data Management ,
Draft Guidance ,
Filing Requirements ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Life Sciences ,
Machine Learning ,
Medical Devices ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular ,
Public Comment ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Risk Management
In its decision to remand, the Federal Circuit (1) held the Board’s non-analogous art test was wrong and articulated a new test for the Board to follow on remand, and (2) left it up to the Board to make the ultimate decision...more
The PTAB Strategies and Insights newsletter provides timely updates and insights into how best to handle proceedings at the USPTO. It is designed to increase return on investment for all stakeholders looking at the entire...more
11/18/2020
/ Comment Period ,
Federal Register ,
Final Written Decisions ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Inventions ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Prior Art ,
Remand