Showing posts with label IP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IP. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Disney Sends Cease And Desist Letter To Character.ai For Copyright Infringement As Studios Move To Protect IP; Deadline, September 30, 2025

Jill Goldsmith, Deadline; Disney Sends Cease And Desist Letter To Character.ai For Copyright Infringement As Studios Move To Protect IP

"Walt Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Character.AI, a “personalized superintelligence platform” that the media giant says is ripping off copyrighted characters without authorization.

The AI startup offers users the ability to create customizable, personalized AI companions that can be totally original but in some cases are inspired by existing characters, including, it seems, Disney icons from Spider-Man and Darth Vader to Moana and Elsa.

The letter is the latest legal salvo by Hollywood as studios begin to step up against AI. Disney has also sued AI company Midjourney for allegedly improper use and distribution of AI-generated characters from Disney films. Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures this month sued Chinese AI firm MiniMax for copyright infringement."

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

The fanfiction written on a notes app that’s become a bestseller – with a seven-figure film deal; The Guardian, September 29, 2025

The Guardian; The fanfiction written on a notes app that’s become a bestseller – with a seven-figure film deal

"How does a first-time novelist get out of the starting blocks quite like that? The thing is, the author behind the doorstopper dark fantasy novel, Alchemised, is no unknown debut: SenLinYu, 34, started off writing Harry Potter fanfiction that blew up online during the pandemic, racking up more than 20m downloads. Sen’s Draco and Hermione (“Dramione”) fanfic, heavily inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, has now been rewritten – with third-party IP necessarily removed – and published traditionally as Alchemised. But if you didn’t know about Alchemised’s origins, you would be unlikely to clock them: even squinting, it’s hard to see any trace of Harry Potter in the revamped version, set in a different world and magic system...

Sen began rewriting Manacled around Christmas 2022, and as they were finishing up, they were approached by a literary agency. Stripping away the Harry Potter and overt Handmaid’s Tale references was not “in any way pleasant”, or something they would ever want to do again. “I would rather be shot,” Sen told their Tumblr followers last year. They described the process as taking two 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzles and “having to use both to build a new puzzle that somehow makes sense. Do not recommend. I also had to scrap and build from scratch an entirely new healing and medicine system and it was literally traumatic.”"

OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports; Reuters, September 29, 2025

Reuters; OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports

"OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless rights holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The artificial intelligence startup began notifying talent agencies and studios over the past week about the opt-out process and the product, which it plans to release in the coming days, the report said.

The new process would mean movie studios and other intellectual property owners would have to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their copyrighted material in videos Sora creates, according to the report."

Monday, September 29, 2025

Former Penn Carey Law adjunct professor John Squires named director of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 29, 2025

Matthew Quitoriano , The Daily Pennsylvanian; Former Penn Carey Law adjunct professor John Squires named director of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

"John Squires, a former adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, was named the next director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Squires will serve as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and advise 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump and the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on intellectual property policy. In the Sept. 22 announcement, Squires wrote that the opportunity to lead a large and influential office was “both humbling and the honor of a lifetime.”...

Squires served as an adjunct professor for Penn Carey Law's L.L.M. program, where he helped lawyers trained outside the country learn about law in the United States.

The director of the USPTO is appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate...

Squires received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Bucknell University and received his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. 

Squires previously served as the chief intellectual property counsel at Honeywell and The Goldman Sachs Group, and has held intellectual property roles at Perkins Coie and Chadbourne and Parker. Prior to his secretarial appointment, Squires was the chair of Emerging Companies and Intellectual Property at Dilworth Paxson."

In the fight over AI, copyright is America’s competitive weapon; The Hill, September 29, 2025

In the fight over AI, copyright is America’s competitive weapon, The Hill; In the fight over AI, copyright is America’s competitive weapon


"On Monday, a new $100 million super-PAC network, Leading the Future, was introduced to shape artificial intelligence policy in next year’s elections. The group says it will fight for sensible guardrails on AI while pushing back against efforts it believes could slow AI development.

But if Leading the Future is to live up to its name, it must avoid an easy trap: framing copyright protections as an obstacle to American AI competitiveness."

I Sued Anthropic, and the Unthinkable Happened; The New York Times, September 29, 2025

 , The New York Times; I Sued Anthropic, and the Unthinkable Happened

"In August 2024, I became one of three named plaintiffs leading a class-action lawsuit against the A.I. company Anthropic for pirating my books and hundreds of thousands of other books to train its A.I. The fight felt daunting, almost preposterous: me — a queer, female thriller writer — versus a company now worth $183 billion?

Thanks to the relentless work of everyone on my legal team, the unthinkable happened: Anthropic agreed to pay authors and publishers $1.5 billion in the largest copyright settlement in history. A federal judge preliminarily approved the agreement last week.

This settlement sends a clear message to the Big Tech companies splashing generative A.I. over every app and page and program: You are not above the law. And it should signal to consumers everywhere that A.I. isn’t an unstoppable tsunami about to overwhelm us. Now is the time for ordinary Americans to recognize our agency and act to put in place the guardrails we want.

The settlement isn’t perfect. It’s absurd that it took an army of lawyers to demonstrate what any 10-year-old knows is true: Thou shalt not steal. At around $3,000 per work, shared by the author and publisher, the damages are far from life-changing (and, some argue, a slap on the wrist for a company flush with cash). I also disagree with the judge’s ruling that, had Anthropic acquired the books legally, training its chatbot on them would have been “fair use.” I write my novels to engage human minds — not to empower an algorithm to mimic my voice and spit out commodity knockoffs to compete directly against my originals in the marketplace, nor to make that algorithm’s creators unfathomably wealthy and powerful.

But as my fellow plaintiff Kirk Wallace Johnson put it, this is “the beginning of a fight on behalf of humans that don’t believe we have to sacrifice everything on the altar of A.I.” Anthropic will destroy its trove of illegally downloaded books; its competitors should take heed to get out of the business of piracy as well. Dozens of A.I. copyright lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies, led in part by Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, David Baldacci, John Grisham, Stacy Schiff and George R. R. Martin. (The New York Times has also brought a suit against OpenAI and Microsoft.)

Though a settlement isn’t legal precedent, Bartz v. Anthropic may serve as a test case for other A.I. lawsuits, the first domino to fall in an industry whose “move fast, break things” modus operandi led to large-scale theft. Among the plaintiffs of other cases are voice actors, visual artists, record labels, YouTubers, media companies and stock-photo libraries, diverse stakeholders who’ve watched Big Tech encroach on their territory with little regard for copyright law...

Now the book publishing industry has sent a message to all A.I. companies: Our intellectual property isn’t yours for the taking, and you cannot act with impunity. This settlement is an opening gambit in a critical battle that will be waged for years to come."

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Trump administration wants cut of universities’ patent revenue: Lutnick; The Hill, September 10, 2025

LEXI LONAS COCHRAN , The Hill; Trump administration wants cut of universities’ patent revenue: Lutnick

"Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated the Trump administration is looking to take a cut of the revenue generated by university patents developed through federally funded research.

Lutnick in an interview with Axios published Wednesday discussed taking a portion of revenue from the patents, arguing it is unfair for the government to give universities the money with no finanical return...

The original purpose of universities maintaining full ownership of patents was to incentivize the quick development of new technologies. And while most universities seek to commercialize patents, they generally would make more money by writing grants, according to a 2024 study cited by Axios."

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Content Creators Want Congress To Revamp Decades-Old Copyright Law; Inc., September 25, 2025

BEN BUTLER , Inc., Content Creators Want Congress To Revamp Decades-Old Copyright Law

"“There’s a growing practice of using the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown tools built into platforms to restrict and shut down competition [which] are considered traditionally unfair trade practices,” Kayla Morán, a lawyer specializing in trademark and contract law, said last week during a hearing examining content creators and entrepreneurship before the House Committee on Small Business...

As content creation becomes more lucrative, creators can protect their IP by filing as LLCs, Morán said, shifting the liability from the person to the business. LLCs protect business assets from the owner of the business, creating a distinction between the two. Social media accounts can be protected as business assets, thus giving creators more legal protections if a podcast name gets stolen, for example, or in cases of impersonation.

But filing as an LLC as opposed to being a sole proprietorship requires registration fees and higher costs, which vary by state. And filing as an LLC doesn’t prevent the IP from being stolen, it would protect it from being pursued as an asset in a personal lawsuit against the creator. 

Morán and Christina Brennan, who runs a social media management company, said entrepreneurs they work with don’t have the knowledge of contract law and how taxes on social media earnings work.

One way to help bridge the disconnect, Morán suggests, would be for the Small Business Administration to provide guidance, plus access to lawyers that can advise on common challenges that bubble up for content creators, like with protecting IP."

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

AI as Intellectual Property: A Strategic Framework for the Legal Profession; JD Supra, September 18, 2025

co-authors:James E. Malackowski and Eric T. Carnick , JD Supra; AI as Intellectual Property: A Strategic Framework for the Legal Profession

"The artificial intelligence revolution presents the legal profession with its most significant practice development opportunity since the emergence of the internet. AI spending across hardware, software, and services reached $279.22 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 35.9% through 2030, reaching $1.8 trillion.[i] AI is rapidly enabling unprecedented efficiencies, insights, and capabilities in industry. The innovations underlying these benefits are often the result of protectable intellectual property (IP) assets. The ability to raise capital and achieve higher valuations can often be traced back to such IP. According to data from Carta, startups categorized as AI companies raised approximately one-third of total venture funding in 2024. Looking only at late-stage funding (Series E+), almost half (48%) of total capital raised went to AI companies.[ii]Organizations that implement strategic AI IP management can realize significant financial benefits.

At the same time, AI-driven enhancements have introduced profound industry risks, e.g., disruption of traditional business models; job displacement and labor market reductions; ethical and responsible AI concerns; security, regulatory, and compliance challenges; and potentially, in more extreme scenarios, broad catastrophic economic consequences. Such risks are exacerbated by the tremendous pace of AI development and adoption, in some cases surpassing societal understanding and regulatory frameworks. According to McKinsey, 78% of respondents say their organizations use AI in at least one business function, up

from 72% in early 2024 and 55% a year earlier.[iii]

This duality—AI as both a catalyst and a disruptor—is now a feature of the modern global economy. There is an urgent need for legal frameworks that can protect AI innovation, facilitate the proper commercial development and deployment of AI-related IP, and navigate the risks and challenges posed by this new technology. Legal professionals who embrace AI as IP™ will benefit from this duality. Early indicators suggest significant advantages for legal practitioners who develop specialized AI as IP expertise, while traditional IP practices may face commoditization pressures."

Friday, September 19, 2025

The 18th-century legal case that changed the face of music copyright law; WIPO Magazine, September 18, 2025

 Eyal Brook, Partner, Head of Artificial Intelligence, S. Horowitz & Co , WIPO Magazine;The 18th-century legal case that changed the face of music copyright law

"As we stand at the threshold of the AI revolution in music creation, perhaps the most valuable lesson from this history is not any particular legal doctrine but rather the recognition that our conceptions of musical works and authorship are not fixed but evolving.

Imagine what would have happened had Berne negotiators decided to define the term in 1886. The “musical work” as a legal concept was born from Johann Christian Bach’s determination to assert his creative rights – and it continues to transform with each new technological development and artistic innovation.

The challenge for copyright law in the 21st century is to keep fulfilling copyright’s fundamental purpose: to recognize and reward human creativity in all its forms. This will require not just legal ingenuity but also a willingness to reconsider our most basic assumptions about what music is and how it comes into being.

Bach’s legacy, then, is not just the precedent that he established but the ongoing conversation he initiated – an unfinished symphony of legal thought that continues to evolve with each new technological revolution and artistic movement.

As we face the challenges of AI and whatever technologies may follow, we would do well to remember that the questions we ask today about ownership and creativity echo those first raised in a London courtroom almost 250 years ago by a composer determined to claim what he believed was rightfully his."

Five Copyright Office Resources You May Not Know Exist; Library of Congress Blogs, September 19, 2025

Ashley Tucker , Library of Congress Blogs, Copyright Creativity at Work; Five Copyright Office Resources You May Not Know Exist

"The U.S. Copyright Office provides a wide range of resources to support creators, educators, and other copyright users, but some of the most valuable tools can fly under the radar. Here are five lesser-known Office resources that can help you better understand, register, and manage your creative works."

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm; The Guardian, September 16, 2025

Guardian staff and agencies , The Guardian; Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm


[Kip Currier: Wasn't fears about the Chinese government's potential ability to manipulate U.S. TikTok users via the TikTok algorithm one of the chief rationales for the past Congress and Biden administration's banning of TikTok? How does this Trump 2.0 deal materially change any of that?

Another rationale for the ban was concerns about China's potential to access and leverage the personal data and impinge the privacy interests of TikTok users in the U.S. How does this proposed arrangement substantively address these concerns, particularly without comprehensive federal data and privacy legislation to give Americans agency over their own data?

The American people need maximal transparency and oversight of any kind of financial deal like this.]


[Excerpt]

"One of the major questions is the fate of TikTok’s powerful algorithm that helped the app become one of the world’s most popular sources of online entertainment.

At a press conference in Madrid, the deputy head of China’s cyber security regulator said the framework of the deal included “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights”.

Wang Jingtao said ByteDance would “entrust the operation of TikTok’s US user data and content security.”

Some commentators have inferred from these comments that TikTok’s US spinoff will retain the Chinese algorithm."

Monday, September 8, 2025

Class-Wide Relief:The Sleeping Bear of AI Litigation Is Starting to Wake Up; Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, October 2025

Anna B. Naydonov, Mark Davies and Jules Lee, Intellectual Property &Technology Law Journal; Class-Wide Relief:The Sleeping Bear of AI Litigation Is Starting to Wake Up

"Probably no intellectual property (IP) topic in the last several years has gotten more attention than the litigation over the use of the claimed copyrighted content in training artificial intelligence (AI) models.The issue of whether fair use applies to save the day for AI developers is rightfully deemed critical, if not existential, for AI innovation. But whether class relief – and the astronomical damages that may come with it – is available in these cases is a question of no less significance."

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Big Questions About AI and the Church Video; August 25, 2025

Big Questions About AI and the Church Video

Kip Currier: This Big Questions About AI and the Church video (1:12:14) was created by the members of my cohort and me (Cohort 7). Our cohort emanated from the groundbreaking August 2024 ecumenical AI & The Church Summit in Seattle that we all attended.

Perhaps raising more questions than providing answers, the video's aim is to encourage reflection and discussion of the many-faceted issues and concerns at the nexus of AI, faith communities, and our broader societies.

Many thanks to our cohort member Rev. Dr. Andy P. Morgan for spearheading, synthesizing, and uploading this video to YouTube. 

Saturday, August 30, 2025

DHS references Mexican IndyCar driver to promote ‘Speedway Slammer’ detention center; The Guardian, August 7, 2025

 Agencies , The Guardian; DHS references Mexican IndyCar driver to promote ‘Speedway Slammer’ detention center


[Kip Currier: Not only is this statement by a DHS spokesperson factually inaccurate, as there's a cogent argument these actions by DHS may negatively impact trademark rights (and rights of publicity) -- “An AI generated image of a car with ‘ICE’ on the side does not violate anyone’s intellectual property rights" -- it's also morally offensive to either recklessly or intentionally appropriate without permission the racing number of one of the top Mexican drivers for use in a DHS promotion that demeans human beings.]


[Excerpt]

"IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward and series officials were shocked by a social media post from the Department of Homeland Security that touts plans for an immigration detention center in Indiana dubbed “Speedway Slammer.” It includes a car with the same number as that of O’Ward, the only Mexican driver in the series.

“It caught a lot of people off guard. Definitely caught me off guard,” O’Ward said Wednesday. “I was just a little bit shocked at the coincidences of that and, you know, of what it means ... I don’t think it made a lot of people proud, to say the least.”

The post on Tuesday included an AI-generated image of a IndyCar-style vehicle with O’Ward’s No 5 that has “ICE” stamped on it. In the image, the car is in front of a jail...

“We were unaware of plans to incorporate our imagery as part of yesterday’s announcement,” IndyCar said in a statement Wednesday. “Consistent with our approach to public policy and political issues, we are communicating our preference that our IP not be utilized moving forward in relation to this matter.”

A DHS spokesperson said it would not change the social media post. “An AI generated image of a car with ‘ICE’ on the side does not violate anyone’s intellectual property rights. Any suggestion to the contrary is absurd,” the spokesperson said in statement. “DHS will continue promoting the ‘Speedway Slammer’ as a comprehensive and collaborative approach to combatting illegal immigration.”

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Watering down Australia’s AI copyright laws would sacrifice writers’ livelihoods to ‘brogrammers’; The Guardian, August 11, 2025

 Tracey Spicer, The Guardian; Watering down Australia’s AI copyright laws would sacrifice writers’ livelihoods to ‘brogrammers’

"My latest book, which is about artificial intelligence discriminating against people from marginalised communities, was composed on an Apple Mac.

Whatever the form of recording the first rough draft of history, one thing remains the same: they are very human stories – stories that change the way we think about the world.

A society is the sum of the stories it tells. When stories, poems or books are “scraped”, what does this really mean?

The definition of scraping is to “drag or pull a hard or sharp implement across (a surface or object) so as to remove dirt or other matter”.

A long way from Brisbane or Bangladesh, in the rarefied climes of Silicon Valley, scrapers are removing our stories as if they are dirt.

These stories are fed into the machines of the great god: generative AI. But the outputs – their creations – are flatter, less human, more homogenised. ChatGPT tells tales set in metropolitan areas in the global north; of young, cishet men and people living without disability.

We lose the stories of lesser-known characters in remote parts of the world, eroding our understanding of the messy experience of being human.

Where will we find the stories of 64-year-old John from Traralgon, who died from asbestosis? Or seven-year-old Raha from Jaipur, whose future is a “choice” between marriage at the age of 12 and sexual exploitation?

OpenAI’s creations are not the “machines of loving grace” envisioned in the 1967 poem by Richard Brautigan, where he dreams of a “cybernetic meadow”.

Scraping is a venal money grab by oligarchs who are – incidentally – scrambling to protect their own intellectual property during an AI arms race.

The code behind ChatGPT is protected by copyright, which is considered to be a literary work. (I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.)

Meta has already stolen the work of thousands of Australian writers.

Now, our own Productivity Commission is considering weakening our Copyright Act to include an exemption for text and data mining, which may well put us out of business.

In its response, The Australia Institute uses the analogy of a car: “Imagine grabbing the keys for a rental car and just driving around for a while without paying to hire it or filling in any paperwork. Then imagine that instead of being prosecuted for breaking the law, the government changed the law to make driving around in a rental car legal.”

It’s more like taking a piece out of someone’s soul, chucking it into a machine and making it into something entirely different. Ugly. Inhuman.

The commission’s report seems to be an absurdist text. The argument for watering down copyright is that it will lead to more innovation. But the explicit purpose of the Copyright Act is to protect innovation, in the form of creative endeavour.

Our work is being devalued, dismissed and destroyed; our livelihoods demolished.

In this age of techno-capitalism, it appears the only worthwhile innovation is being built by the “brogrammers”.

US companies are pinching Australian content, using it to train their models, then selling it back to us. It’s an extractive industry: neocolonialism, writ large."

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Larry Ellison Wants to Do Good, Do Research and Make a Profit; The New York Times, August 12, 2025

 Theodore Schleifer and , The New York Times; Larry Ellison Wants to Do Good, Do Research and Make a Profit

"Mr. Ellison has rarely engaged with the community of Giving Pledge signers, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. He has cherished his autonomy and does not want to be influenced to support Mr. Gates’s causes, one of the people said, while also sensitive to any idea that he is backing off the pledge.

But the stakes of Mr. Ellison’s message on X are enormous. His fortune is about 10 times what it was when he signed the pledge as the software company he founded, Oracle, rides the artificial intelligence boom. Mr. Ellison controls a staggering 40-plus percent of the company’s stock...

“Oxford, Cambridge and the whole university sector are under pressure to capitalize on intellectual property because of long-running government policy belief that the U.K. has fallen behind economically,” said John Picton, an expert in nonprofit law at the University of Manchester."

Monday, August 11, 2025

Invention-Con 2025: Empowering American ingenuity and innovation; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), September 9-10, 2025

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ; Invention-Con 2025: Empowering American ingenuity and innovation

"Do you want to grow your intellectual property (IP) knowledge and gain access to IP and business experts, accomplished innovators, and inspiring entrepreneurs? Join us for the USPTO's free flagship conference for inventors, makers, and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss Invention-Con 2025, coming to you virtually September 9-10 from 1:00 – 3:30 p.m. ET daily. Tailored for the independent inventor and entrepreneur community, our marquee event brings inspiration and IP experts directly to you.

  • Learn from accomplished innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, and business owners how to use IP to achieve success.

  • Discover resources available to assist at every stage of your journey.

  • Connect with IP and business experts who can help you develop a strategy for your innovation, from idea to market."

Thursday, July 31, 2025

The AI Patent Revolution: Why Young Professionals Should Think Like Inventors; Forbes, July 31, 2025

Arvin Patel, , Forbes; The AI Patent Revolution: Why Young Professionals Should Think Like Inventors

"While headlines warn of artificial intelligence replacing millions of jobs, they overlook a fundamental shift occurring right under our noses: The surge in AI innovation is generating unprecedented demand at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Major corporations are also actively seeking employees who understand both AI capabilities and intellectual property strategy. These aren't jobs that AI will replace—they're jobs that exist because of AI."

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

How an M&M Sparked the Search for the Next Perfect Peanut; The New York Times, July 24, 2025

 , The New York Times; How an M&M Sparked the Search for the Next Perfect Peanut

"As one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, Mars approaches agricultural research differently than many corporations. Like open-source software, the information its research produces is available for anyone to use or share with no patents or intellectual property rights standing in the way. The company has invested in similar research in cacao and mint, two other crops Mars cannot survive without.

It’s the way Forrest Mars, Sr., the billionaire who invented M&Ms, would have wanted it, Mars scientists say. In 1947 he declared mutuality — the idea that Mars’s success should also benefit others — as one of the company’s five core principles. It still guides the company, which had nearly $50 billion in sales in 2024. And it’s why they are all in on the Wild Peanut Lab."