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April 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Crocs Inc.’s petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc, leaving in place a panel’s January opinion that held that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) did not abuse its discretion by granting a limited exclusion order (LEO) and not a general exclusion order (GEO) to Crocs against defaulting defendants accused of importing products that infringed or diluted its trademarks.
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April 27, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge incorrectly determined at the pleading stage that a hip-hop news outlet’s reproduction of a video of basketball player Michael Jordan breaking up a fight constituted fair use, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that the news outlet “potentially provided consumers with a substitute work that obviated the need to seek out (and pay for) the video” shot by a plaintiff-appellant videographer.
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April 24, 2026
NEW YORK — Music companies successfully allege that YouTube imposed at least some technological measures designed to protect content posted on the site, though the exact nature of the restrictions will need to determined on a more full record, a federal judge in New York said in denying a motion to dismiss an artificial intelligence circumvention case.
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April 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled April 22 that a California federal judge too rigidly applied local rules when denying a new trial motion from defendant entities found liable for willful copyright infringement through their distribution of DVDs of a Christian film; the panel’s opinion resolves three consolidated appeals from the case.
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April 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Direct copyright infringement claims in an artificial intelligence case will proceed after a federal judge in California concluded that plaintiffs adequately tied the copying of their protected works to MosaicML Inc.’s and Databricks Inc.’s training of large language models (LLMs).
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In two opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that the evidence did not support a California federal jury’s determination that defendant medical entities in a sprawling dispute over a cosmetic penile implant device had misappropriated trade secrets; the panel found that all alleged trade secrets had been publicly disclosed in prior art patents.
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April 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 rejected an artist’s petition for a writ of certiorari, leaving in place a partly split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that reversed a California federal jury’s finding that Walmart Inc. had infringed copyrighted photos of the artist’s jellyfish-shaped lamps; the high court refused to hear arguments suggesting that the Ninth Circuit improperly considered the sufficiency of trial evidence while weighing a pretrial motion.
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April 21, 2026
ATLANTA — Reversing a Florida federal judge’s dismissal, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that an entity associated with the late Mexican surrealist artist Frida Kahlo established personal jurisdiction for Lanham Act and other claims against the artist’s grandniece because she is alleged to have sent cease-and-desist letters with false claims of trademark ownership into Florida on her own behalf.
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April 21, 2026
NEW YORK — A quartet of news providers has not shown that automated outputs of an “answers engine” powered by artificial intelligence and retrieval-augmented generation constitute copyright violations or that using tags identifying the source material violates trademark rights, Perplexity AI Inc. tells a federal judge in New York.
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April 10, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel agreed with a Pennsylvania federal judge that an online research platform was likely to succeed on its fair use defense against claims accusing it of infringing copyrighted building codes that have been incorporated into the International Building Code; the panel pointed to a 2023 opinion by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appealsinvolving the same plaintiff-appellant that similarly found fair use.
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April 07, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — Nvidia Corp. and authors squared off in supplemental briefing over the impact a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has on contributory infringement claims involving the training of artificial intelligence.
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April 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 6 granted an internet service provider’s (ISP) petition for a writ of certiorari and then immediately vacated a ruling by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that held that the ISP was vicariously liable for copyright infringement through its internet customers’ behavior. The high court pointed to its recent opinion that reversed a similar ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals against a different ISP.
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April 06, 2026
ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Missouri federal judge’s holding that a design company owed two real estate agents and affiliated entities a combined total of more than $230,000 in attorney fees, noting the lack of evidentiary support for many of the design company’s claims that the realtors had infringed copyrighted floor plans in resale listings.
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April 01, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An electronic health records company failed to show that it held valid copyright registrations related to software it accused the U.S. government and another entity of infringing, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, affirming the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’ grant of summary judgment in the government’s favor on the plaintiff-appellant’s copyright infringement claim.
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March 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia held that a publisher of rare and out-of-print books is entitled only to limited relief based on a 2023 ruling by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the U.S. Copyright Office’s demand that the publisher deposit physical copies was an unconstitutional uncompensated taking of property; while the publisher is entitled to see the demand letter be declared null and void, it is not entitled to injunctive relief as to hypothetical future demands, the judge determined.
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March 27, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge held that plaintiffs in a putative class complaint plausibly allege misappropriation-based injuries because of Ancestry.com Operations Inc. and related entities using their yearbook photos without their permission, but the judge held that certain theories of misappropriation are preempted by federal copyright law.
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March 25, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 25 held that an internet service provider (ISP) could not be found contributorily liable for users’ piracy of material from a group of record labels and music publishers without a showing of intent through inducement of infringement or providing of a service designed for infringement, reversing a finding by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that drew warnings from the U.S. government of potential negative impacts to widely available internet access.
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March 25, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a real estate entity’s petition for a writ of certiorari, declining to hear arguments that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly revived antitrust counterclaims filed against the entity in response to copyright claims it brought against another real estate entity; the petitioner had also argued that the Ninth Circuit wrongly created a novel theory of exclusive dealing based on customer misunderstanding.
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March 19, 2026
NEW YORK — Whether media companies’ allegation that OpenAI entities downloaded content and removed copyright management information from works used to train artificial intelligence suffices as an injury or whether copyright law requires something more came before the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals during oral arguments on March 18.
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March 18, 2026
NEW YORK — A romance author who claimed that another author and publishing industry entities copied the premise of her unpublished “romantasy” novel to form the basis of a bestselling novel series cannot show substantial similarity between the works, a New York federal judge found.
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March 17, 2026
CLEVELAND — An Ohio federal judge denied a nonprofit birthing advocacy group’s motion to dismiss its founder’s complaint that the organization used copyrights and trademarks created by the founder without authorization; the judge held that the plaintiff adequately alleged copyright and trademark infringement for the purpose of surviving dismissal.
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March 16, 2026
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal judge in Alabama on March 13 granted a cancer advocacy group’s motion for a temporary restraining order against the former president of its board of directors and the company she controls, enjoining the defendants from using trademarks related to the phrase “Women in Blue” in connection with a fundraising initiative.
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March 12, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California vacated a scheduled hearing on a motion to dismiss direct copyright infringement claims against MosaicML Inc. and Databricks Inc. and will decide the motion on the briefs in litigation over the alleged use of copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence models (In re Mosaic LLM Litigation, No. 24-1451, N.D. Calif.).
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March 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a pro-Zionist advocacy group’s petition for a writ of certiorari in a March 9 order list, declining to hear the advocacy group’s contention that the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals violated the core principles of trademark law when a panel determined that the group and another with similar aims are co-owners of the trademark “Zioness.”
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March 06, 2026
NEW YORK — Revenue and profits Microsoft Corp. acquired as a result of artificial intelligence offerings are relevant and discoverable in a suit over the alleged use of copyrighted works to train the technology, a proposed class told a federal judge in New York. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs and OpenAI entities filed letter briefs over the availability and relevance of 88 million ChatGPT conversations.