Intellectual property law

Intellectual property law

Creators, beware: just because it's online doesn't mean it's fair game. In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard Buckley break down one of the most misunderstood areas of copyright law-fair use. In this episode, they cover: What makes a use "transformative"? Why credit alone doesn't protect you How recent court rulings (Warhol v. Goldsmith) are changing the game Tips to stay on the right side of the law

Although Alexi has not yet formally responded to the lawsuit, its founder and CEO Mark Doble told me yesterday afternoon that he denies any wrongdoing and that he believes the lawsuit is based on a misunderstanding of the original licensing agreement that came to light during Clio's recent closing of its purchase of vLex, which had merged with Fastcase in 2023.

"When experimenting with Google's AI Studio over the weekend, my 6-year-old son had the idea to create a website that would tell stories and generate pictures of the story," US IP lawyer Jonathan Menkes, a partner at the Knobbe Martens law firm, explained in a blog post. "In less than 2 minutes, he created a fully interactive website, including the proposed name 'Bedtime Story Weaver.'"

Some justices were skeptical of arguments that ISPs should have no legal obligation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to terminate an account when a user's IP address has been repeatedly flagged for downloading pirated music. But justices also seemed hesitant to rule in favor of record labels, with some of the debate focusing on how ISPs should handle large accounts like universities where there could be tens of thousands of users.

In May 2025, President Trump terminated Copyright Register Shira Perlmutter from office, one day after she released a report concluding that in some situations AI training on copyrighted works scraped from the internet does not qualify as fair use. Most recently, the Trump Administration has asked the Supreme Court to vacate that injunction in Blanche v. Perlmutter, No. 25A478,

The case then went quiet, save for Siemens arguing that its software licenses mean it can move the matter to Germany instead of the US court for the District of Delaware in which VMware brought its case. Siemens also argued that this was a contractual matter, not a copyright claim. On Wednesday, VMware fired back with filings that argue Siemens' interpretation of its software licenses is wrong and the agreements do not allow the case to be heard in Germany, as the defendant has sought.

This case arises from Coca-Cola's pirating Johnny Cash's voice in a nationwide advertising campaign to enrich itself without asking for permission or providing any compensation to the humble man and artist who created the goodwill from which Coca-Cola now profits, the complaint said. Stealing the voice of an artist is theft. It is theft of his integrity, identity and humanity, said Tim Warnock, a lawyer for the Cash estate.

So allow me to flag one new item on the table that may have gone unnoticed: Warner Music Group's legal settlement with AI music startup Suno. The deal, announced on Tuesday, ends Warner's copyright lawsuit against Suno and establishes a partnership that will let consumers create AI-generated music with the voices, compositions, names, and likenesses of any Warner Music artists who choose to participate.

Three new mandamus petitions recently arrived at the Federal Circuit, each attempting to navigate around the court's November 6 decisions that rejected challenges to the USPTO's expanded use of discretionary denials. The new petitions raise arguments their counsel contend are distinct from those already rejected in In re Motorola Solutions, Inc., No. 2025-134 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 6, 2025) (precedential).

The suit was filed in Alexandria, Virginia, and accuses Tesla of knowingly infringing upon five patents related to robotics systems for self-driving vehicles. The company said its founder, Paul Perrone, developed general-purpose robotics operating systems for individual robots and automated devices. Perrone Robotics claims that all Tesla vehicles utilizing the company's Autopilot suite within the last six years infringe the five patents, according to a report from Reuters. Tesla's new Safety Report shows Autopilot is nine times safer than humans

Tradespace, the San Francisco-based AI-powered intellectual property management platform, has acquired Paragon, an AI patent-drafting startup founded by three Princeton University computer science students. The acquisition, Tradespace says, makes it the first AI-powered platform to support the complete IP lifecycle, from initial invention disclosure through patent drafting, prosecution, portfolio management and commercialization. The deal brings together two companies with complementary missions around democratizing access to patent protection.

Smartrend Manufacturing Group (SMG), Inc. v. Opti-Luxx Inc., No. 2024-1616 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 13, 2025). Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Dyk reversed a jury verdict finding that Opti-Luxx's illuminated school bus sign infringed SMG's U.S. Patent No. 11,348,491 under the doctrine of equivalents. The appellate court held that no reasonable jury could find the accused product's frame performed the same function as that claimed.

The Federal Circuit has reversed a lost profits award in a patent infringement case involving self-balancing unicycles, holding that the district court applied the wrong legal standard when it excluded evidence of noninfringing substitutes that were not actually "on sale during period of infringement." In Inventist Inc. v. Ninebot Inc. (USA), No. 2024-1010 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 14, 2025) (nonprecedential), the court reaffirmed the principle from Grain Processing Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 185 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir. 1999),

NetApp has filed a federal lawsuit against former Chief Technology Officer Jón Thorgrímur Stefánsson. The company alleges that during his employment, he used confidential information to establish a competing startup, which was acquired by rival VAST Data shortly after his departure. According to NetApp, the fact that VAST Data bought the startup Red Stapler shortly after its founding does not change the fact that VAST is not accused of involvement. The claims focus exclusively on the actions of Stefánsson and a few former colleagues.

To be clear, YMTC is not an ordinary China-based company. YMTC reached the Entity List after first being placed on the Unverified List in October 2022 when BIS was unable to complete end-use checks to verify that exported technology was being used as declared. Under President Biden, YMTC was added to the Entity List based on findings that the company creates a major risk of diversion (sharing key technology) with other parties on the entities list, including Huawei and Hangzhou Hikvision.