Thomson Reuters' 2020 lawsuit alleges that Ross Intelligence copied Westlaw's "headnotes" to train its AI-based legal search engine. Ross Intelligence, which shut down its platform in January 2021 citing litigation costs, argued that it made fair use of the Westlaw material. The jury will decide on fair use and other questions, including the extent of Thomson Reuters' copyright protection in the headnotes. No trial date has been set yet.
Key takeaways:
- A jury will decide the outcome of a lawsuit by Thomson Reuters accusing Ross Intelligence of unlawfully copying content from its legal-research platform Westlaw to train a competing AI-based platform.
- The decision could be one of the first trials related to the unauthorized use of data to train AI systems, with other tech companies also facing similar lawsuits.
- Ross Intelligence argued that it made fair use of the Westlaw material, raising a pivotal question for legal disputes over generative AI training.
- The judge stated that he could not determine whether Ross 'transformed' the Westlaw material into a 'brand-new research platform that serves a different purpose', which is often a key fair use question.