The Journey of Litigation
Quick Guide to Administrative Hearings
Wire Fraud Litigants Beware: Fourth Circuit Ruling Protects the Banks — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Solicitors General Insights: The Tale of Two Washingtons — Regulatory Oversight Podcast
How confidential is a request to access or challenge information in INTERPOL’s files?
Understanding the Impact of IPR Estoppel and PTAB Discretionary Denials — Patents: Post-Grant Podcast
The Presumption of Innocence Podcast: Episode 64 - Cages We Built: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Solicitors General Insights: The Legal Frontlines in Iowa and Indiana — Regulatory Oversight Podcast
The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim
The Briefing: No CTRL-ALT-DEL For the Server Test
Navigating PTAB’s New Approach to IPR and PGR Discretionary Denial - Patents: Post-Grant Podcast
Solicitors General Insights: A Deep Dive With Mississippi and Tennessee Solicitors General — Regulatory Oversight Podcast
Update on the State of Non-compete Restrictions (LaborSpeak)
UPIC Audits
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Prominent Journalist, David Dayen, Describes his Reporting on the Efforts of Trump 2.0 to Curb CFPB
#WorkforceWednesday®: Federal Contractors Alert - DEI Restrictions Reinstated by Appeals Court - Employment Law This Week®
5 Key Takeaways | Building a Winning Evidentiary Record at the PTAB (and Surviving Appeal)
Exploring Procedural Justice | Judge Steve Leben | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Handling Post-Conviction Death Penalty Cases Pro Bono | McKenzie Edwards | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Inside the Fourth Court of Appeals’ Clerk’s Office | Michael Cruz | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that a non-fungible token (NFT) is a “good” under the Lanham Act but reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for trademark infringement because the owner...more
The recent ruling in a lawsuit against Anthropic highlights a growing complexity in how courts are approaching fair use in the context of AI training. Judge William Alsup held that developing Anthropic’s Claude model was...more
Addressing the intersection of a trust beneficiary’s rights to royalties and an heir’s copyright termination rights under 17 U.S.C. § 203, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order...more
Floor plans are a key part of real estate listings, providing fundamental information about the layout of a building to prospective buyers or renters. But home designer Charles James and his company Designworks Homes, Inc....more
In separate high-profile actions brought by authors against Anthropic and Meta, two California federal judges ruled that the reproduction of copyright-protected books to train large language models (LLMs) was fair use that...more
In a new precedential decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. v. Halicki that “Eleanor,” a stable of Ford Mustangs that appears across four action films, is not a copyrightable...more
Can a car be a copyrightable character? In Carroll Shelby Licensing v. Halicki, the Ninth Circuit said no — ruling that “Eleanor,” the iconic Mustang from ‘Gone in 60 Seconds,’ lacks the distinctiveness and consistency...more
A former University of Michigan assistant football coach accused of hacking the personal information and intimate photos of thousands of students has asked a Michigan federal judge to set aside a default entry against him,...more
Ninth Circuit holds that custom Ford Mustang called “Eleanor,” which appeared in four films from 1974 to 2000, is not entitled to character copyright protection under Towle test and that licensor of custom car design did not...more
Rough Terrain Ahead: New York Ski Resort Operator Appeals Ruling That It Violated Antitrust Law by Buying Out Direct Competitor - Intermountain Management Inc. (“Intermountain”), a company operating popular ski areas...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a copyright action, finding that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege either that the defendant had “access” to the work in question...more
Ninth Circuit affirms dismissal of copyright infringement claim against musician Lil Nas X, finding that mere availability of plaintiff influencer’s photographs on Instagram does not amount to access to those photographs and...more
Ninth Circuit reverses summary judgment in favor of pop singer Sam Smith in music copyright dispute, holding in unpublished opinion that hook in plaintiff’s song may be protectable as unique selection and arrangement of...more
On April 29, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived the copyright infringement case filed by Sound and Color, LLC against Sam Smith, Normani, and related parties (collectively, “Defendants”) concerning the hit song...more
Jack Nicklaus just scored a $1 million win in a New York court, striking back against his former company’s attempt to control his personal brand....more
Given that litigation in the United States can take years from start to finish, we rarely see a conclusion to the cases we follow. In a prior blog post, we looked at the potential recusal requirements of the U.S. Supreme...more
We previously reported on the groundbreaking AI Fair Use ruling in the Thomson Reuters Ross Intelligence case, where the court found that based on the facts of this case fair use was not a defense. Ross Intelligence moved,...more
In a significant decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently ruled that the Copyright Act of 1976 requires human authorship to register a work, affirming the district court’s denial of a...more
The DC Circuit has reaffirmed and reinforced longstanding Copyright Office policy that only humans can be authors....more
The recent decision in Thaler v. Perlmutter et al., No. 23-5233 (D.C. Cir. 2025) offers continued guidance on whether “authorship” can be attributed to AI systems (i.e., non-humans) under Copyright Law. The D.C. Circuit...more
Last week, the D.C. Circuit upheld the Copyright Office’s refusal to register the copyright in this image, which was created entirely by AI. This is consistent with longstanding precedent (in the US, at least) that only...more
On March 18, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that an AI model cannot be the author of copyrighted material under existing copyright law. The court affirmed the US Copyright Office’s long-standing human...more
Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Thaler v. Perlmutter. The opinion notably solidifies the U.S. Copyright Office’s position that works generated autonomously (and thus solely) by artificial...more
On March 18, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the “D.C. Circuit”) ruled in Thaler v. Perlmutter, affirming that works created solely by artificial intelligence (“AI”) cannot be...more
The first substantive decision on the fair use defense in an artificial intelligence (AI) copyright case came down against the defendant, who used AI to create a competing product. However, as the decision expressly limited...more