Intellectual Property

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On November 4, 2025, the UK High Court handed down judgment in Getty Images v. Stability AI,[1] a case emphasized for its significance to content creators and the AI industry and “the balance to be struck between the two warring factions”.[2] Despite significant public interest in the lawsuit, the issues that remained before the court on the “diminished”[3] case were limited (after Getty abandoned its primary infringement claims during trial). The judgment dismisses Getty’s remaining claims of secondary copyright infringement. While some claims of trademark infringement asserted by Getty were upheld, Justice Joanna Smith DBE acknowledged the findings were “extremely limited in scope”.[4]

This is the final part of our four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. Read parts 1, 2, and 3.

The EUIPO study provides detailed insights into the evolving relationship between GenAI and copyright law, highlighting both the complex challenges and emerging solutions in this rapidly developing field. As discussed in the previous parts of this series, the study addresses crucial issues at both the training (input) and deployment (output) stages of GenAI systems.

This is the third part of our four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. Read parts 1, 2, and 4.

This third part of the four-part series offers four key takeaways on GenAI output, highlighting critical issues around retrieval augmented generation (RAG), transparency solutions, copyright retention concerns and emerging technical remedies.

This is the second part of our four-part series on the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright. Read parts 1, 3, and 4.

In this second part of our four-part series exploring the EUIPO study on GenAI and copyright, we set out our key takeaways regarding GenAI inputs, including findings on the evolving interpretation of the legal text and data mining (TDM) rights reservation regime and existing opt-out measures.

As inventors, attorneys and patent examiners grapple with the impacts of AI on patents, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) has released guidance concerning the subject matter patent eligibility of inventions that relate to AI technology.[1]  The impetus for this guidance was President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, which directed the USPTO to issue guidance to patent examiners and applicants regarding patent subject matter eligibility in order to address innovation in AI and other critical and emerging technologies.  

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) issued guidance on February 13, 2024 (the “Guidance”) regarding the patentability of inventions created or developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence (“AI”), a novel issue on which the USPTO has been seeking input from various public and private stakeholders over the past few years.  President Biden mandated the issuance of such Guidance in his executive order on AI (see our prior alert here)[1] in October 2023.  The Guidance aims to clarify how patent applications involving AI-assisted inventions will be examined by patent examiners, and reaffirms the existing jurisprudence maintaining that only natural persons, not AI tools, can be listed as inventors.  However, the Guidance clarifies that AI-assisted inventions are not automatically ineligible for patent protection so long as one or more natural persons “significantly contributed” to the invention.  Overall, the Guidance underscores the need for a balanced approach to inventorship that acknowledges both technological advancements and human innovation.  The USPTO is seeking public feedback on the Guidance, which is due by May 13, 2024.

This is the fourth and final part of our series on using synthetic data to train AI models. See here for Parts 1, 2 and 3.

In Punchbowl, Inc. v. AJ Press, Inc., the Ninth Circuit revived a trademark infringement case previously dismissed on grounds that the First Amendment shields “expressive” trademarks from Lanham Act liability unless plaintiff can show the mark (1) has no artistic relevance to the underlying work, or (2) explicitly misleads as to its source.[1]  This is known as the Rogers test, and effectively operates as a shield to trademark liability where it applies.  Last year, the Supreme Court limited application of the Rogers test in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, [2] holding that it does not apply where the challenged use of a trademark is to identify the source of the defendant’s goods or services.  In those instances, a traditional likelihood of confusion or dilution analysis is required. 

On November 28, 2023, U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter for the Central District of California granted motions for summary judgment against a screenwriter’s claims that the creation of Ad Astra, the 2019 Brad Pitt film, had infringed on a script he had written.[1]  The Court reasoned that the defendant companies could not have possibly copied the script in question, as they did not have access to the script until after Ad Astra was written.  Additionally, the court stated, the two films were significantly different so as to conclude there was no infringement, even if it could be shown there was access.