Two judges in the Northern District of California recently issued groundbreaking summary judgment rulings regarding whether an artificial intelligence company’s scraping and ingestion of copyrighted works to train its LLMs qualified as fair use. Both decisions carry potentially seismic importance for AI companies and intellectual property litigators.
A trademark battle that pitted technology giant OpenAI against a company known as Open AI (note the space between the terms) has resulted in a summary judgment that has ordered the smaller enterprise to cease use of the name and its prized internet real estate, open.ai.
In late July, two important decisions came down from courts in the Northern District of California regarding the unauthorized use of copyrighted material for the training of large language models. No real consensus has emerged as to the effect they will have on the broader AI litigation landscape.
Protectable rights are created the same way a successful brand is established — linking your Mark and your company’s offering in the minds of the consumer is a must. The good news? Regardless of your company’s size or marketing budget, this necessary connection can be achieved.
Just three months ago, Acting Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Coke Morgan Stewart rescinded existing guidelines governing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) discretion to deny petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) when parallel litigation is already pending in federal district court or the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). Acting Director Stewart replaced those guidelines with new interim processes that rely on the Director to issue decisions on patent owners’ requests for discretionary denials.
“Not Merely Monkey Business”: The Bored Ape Case and NFT Branding in the Ninth Circuit
On July 23, 2025, the Ninth Circuit issued a pivotal decision regarding digital art, blockchain technology, and trademark law. The ruling not only clarifies that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are protectable “goods” under federal trademark law, but also sets important standards for how courts should analyze consumer confusion, fair use, and First Amendment protections surrounding artistic expression in the rapidly evolving NFT marketplace.
While the EU AI Act certainly deserves compliments for both its pioneering nature and numerous thoughtful provisions aimed at the efficient and effective regulation of modern AI, it is not without its drawbacks.
Federal Circuit: District Court Did Not Err In Declining to Find Infringement By Moderna’s Activities Involving COVID-19 VaccineFederal Circuit: PTAB Did Not Err In Finding that Prior Art Reference Disclosed Negative Limitation Without Stating a Feature’s Absence
A federal judge handed Meta a major win on June 24 in a closely watched copyright case over its use of books to train large language models, but the ruling stopped well short of giving tech companies blanket protection to scrape creative works for artificial intelligence.
