Topic: Intellectual property

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has affirmed a partial summary judgment holding that ROSS Intelligence infringed copyrights in Westlaw headnotes and could not establish a fair-use defense for its use of those materials.

French authorities favour existing copyright rules for AI assisted creations and propose public domain status for purely synthetic output.

Canadian and US developments highlight the limits of NoAI tags and the legal and commercial risks linked to AI training datasets.

In a landmark ruling in Fujifilm v. Kodak, the UPC Court of Appeal confirmed that it can adjudicate patent infringement claims relating to national designations of European patents outside the UPC system, including the United Kingdom. While the Court ultimately overturned the infringement finding, its broader message is difficult to miss: the UPC is positioning itself as a forum capable of resolving increasingly international technology disputes.

While the UK government stalled in its plans to respond to the rise of AI with legislative change in its March 2026 Report and Impact Assessment on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (the Report), celebrities have turned to trade mark law to combat deepfake imitations of their voices, catchphrases and appearance.

The CJEU’s forthcoming decision on so called “long arm jurisdiction”, under which courts have assumed jurisdiction beyond the limits of strictly national or contractually defined territories could enable far-reaching centralisation of patent litigation in the EU, turning authorised representatives into jurisdictional anchors and significantly increasing procedural and liability risks for global market participants.

The revised Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation and accompanying guidelines will enter into force on 1 May 2026.

Artificial intelligence continues to expand its capabilities and challenge existing legal principles, with copyright law at the forefront.

Courts are beginning to define how companies should consider retaining outputs generated by GenAI tools.

A recent decision by the German Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (OLG Hamburg, 5 U 104/24, 10 December 2025) in the case of Robert Kneschke v. LAION e.V. provides the first appellate-level guidance in Germany on questions surrounding copyright exceptions for text and data mining (TDM) and scientific research in the context of AI training.