"ROSS Intelligence has filed its opening brief in the Third Circuit, challenging Judge Stephanos Bibas's decision that the AI company's use of Westlaw headnotes to train its legal search engine constituted copyright infringement. The case presents fundamental questions about the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence training that could significantly impact the development of AI systems across industries. Thomson Reuters Enter. Ctr. GmbH v. Ross Intel. Inc., No. 25-2153 (3d Cir. appeal filed Sept. 2025)."
"ROSS Intelligence built an AI legal search engine designed to let users ask legal questions in plain English and receive ranked, cited passages from judicial opinions as answers. To train the system, ROSS commissioned 25,000 legal memoranda from LegalEase Solutions, each posing a question and providing multiple ranked answers. Many of the questions were adapted directly from Westlaw headnotes summarize points of law from judicial opinions."
"Judge Bibas' February 2025 decision granted summary judgment in favor of the copyright holder -- finding that Westlaw's headnotes were sufficiently original for copyright protection and that ROSS's use for training did not qualify qualified as fair use. The district court certified the copyright questions for immediate interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), recognizing the novel and difficult nature of the issues presented."
ROSS Intelligence developed an AI legal search engine that returns ranked, cited passages from judicial opinions in response to plain-English legal questions. ROSS commissioned 25,000 legal memoranda from LegalEase Solutions to train the system, using many questions adapted directly from Westlaw headnotes. Westlaw headnotes were incorporated as labeled training inputs to teach the AI how to identify and rank relevant case passages. Judge Stephanos Bibas granted summary judgment finding the headnotes sufficiently original for copyright protection and that ROSS's training use did not qualify as fair use, and the district court certified the issues for interlocutory appeal to the Third Circuit.
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