Authors' Attys Call Anthropic's $1.5B IP Deal Their 'Creation'

By Rae Ann Varona

Asked to justify a massive $187.5 million attorney fee request in litigation accusing Anthropic of copyright infringement, counsel for the plaintiff class of authors told a California federal judge Thursday that the resulting $1.5 billion settlement was "the creation of class counsel."

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Analysis

States Eye AI Ownership Laws To Fill Federal IP Gaps

By Ivan Moreno

States are beginning to test whether they can fill a gap left by federal copyright and patent law for works created with artificial intelligence, with Arkansas adopting a first-of-its-kind ownership rule for generative content and lawmakers elsewhere weighing their own proposals.

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Algorithms In Senate Spotlight After Social Media Suit Losses

By Emily Field

Lawyers and parents on Wednesday urged lawmakers to strengthen protections for children online, focusing on the addictiveness of social media algorithms after two recent trial losses for Big Tech.

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'Who's Telling The Truth?' Musk-OpenAI Fight Goes To Jury

By Dorothy Atkins

Elon Musk's counsel urged a California federal jury during trial closings Thursday to find OpenAI breached its charitable trust aided by Microsoft Corp. and slammed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's credibility, while OpenAI's counsel argued Musk is trying to attack his competitor and urged jurors to ask themselves, "Who's telling the truth?"

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OpenAI Seeks To Overturn Injunction In 'IO' TM Fight

By Ivan Moreno

OpenAI is urging a California federal judge to overturn a preliminary injunction barring the company from using "IO" as a trademark for AI hardware, arguing it has abandoned all federal applications for the mark and has no plans to use it.

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Meta Starts NM Defense As Midtrial Win Bid Fails

By Cara Salvatore

A judge denied Meta a midtrial win Thursday morning over harm to underage social media users, prompting the social media giant to call an executive to begin building a defense case that platform changes requested by New Mexico's attorney general are unnecessary or even counterproductive.

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Sills Cummis, Ex-Client Compete To Narrow Malpractice Trial

By Jake Maher

Sills Cummis & Gross PC and the former manager of a rock musician suing the firm for malpractice sought to limit the scope of evidence in an upcoming trial over $1.2 million in damages in motions to a New Jersey state court this week.

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House Panel Backs Bill To Recast Copyright Office Oversight

By Ivan Moreno

A U.S. House committee Thursday unanimously advanced a bill that would change how the Copyright Office chief is selected, requiring congressional leaders to recommend candidates while allowing the president to make the final selection — a shift that would give both branches of government a more direct role in choosing the agency's leadership.

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Squires Walks Back 5 More IPR Grants Over Inconsistent Args

By Theresa Schliep

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has reversed earlier decisions granting five petitions for patent review, citing what he called the challengers' inconsistent positions in parallel proceedings and explaining that four petitions he denied in previous bulk orders were also rejected for the same reasons. 

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Sterne Kessler, Thomson Reuters Launch Patent Eligibility AI Tool

By Matt Perez

Intellectual property boutique Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox PLLC announced it has partnered with Thomson Reuters Corp. to develop an artificial intelligence workflow within CoCounsel Legal to analyze patent eligibility under Section 101.

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Google Says DOJ's Search Win Can't Help Yelp Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Google urged a California federal judge on Wednesday not to let Yelp invoke the U.S. Department of Justice's D.C. search monopoly win in the local search provider's own antitrust case, arguing that the two lawsuits look at the interconnection between local and general search through fundamentally different lenses.

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2nd Circ. Backs 20-Year Stretch For Forcount Fraudster

By Pete Brush

The Second Circuit on Thursday affirmed a 20-year sentence for an Ecuadorian man from Florida who pushed the $14 million, international Forcount cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, concluding that "any error" from a broadcast of the sentencing did not impact the outcome.

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Senate Bill Would Require Network Outage Refunds

By Christopher Cole

A Democratic senator filed legislation that would require cable, satellite, internet and phone providers to refund customers for service outages lasting longer than four hours.

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Advocacy Groups, Dems Seek To Restore Digital Equity Fund

By Christopher Cole

A year after the Trump administration abruptly pulled funds set aside for digital equity grants, Democratic lawmakers are joining with public interest groups in trying to block a budget proposal that would permanently stamp out the program.

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Verizon's Array Buy Gets Green Light From FCC Staff

By Christopher Cole

Verizon secured approval Thursday from the Federal Communications Commission to buy up spectrum assets of the former rival UScellular, now known as Array Digital Infrastructure Inc.

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Rural Carrier To Pay $80K For Breaking FCC Rules

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A rural telephone company in Colorado has agreed to pay $80,000 and create a compliance plan to resolve a Federal Communications Commission probe into whether it provided unauthorized service.

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AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Join Forces To End 'Dead Zones'

By Hailey Konnath

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have reached an agreement in principle to form a new joint venture aimed at ending wireless dead zones in the U.S. by pooling resources to increase capacity, according to an announcement made Thursday.

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Conn. Mayor Given Gag Order For Talking To Press About Trial

By Elizabeth Daley

A Connecticut mayor placed the integrity of a wrongful conviction trial "at grave risk" by speaking to the media, a judge said in issuing a gag order this week, also noting that the jury will be instructed on the importance of ignoring news stories.

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Framing AI Risk Management In The Art World

With gallery professionals indicating a widening gap between operational adoption of artificial intelligence and cultural acceptance of AI as an art medium, certain intellectual property, privacy and governance considerations are becoming critical for art industry stakeholders, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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Nexstar Offers A Cautionary Tale On State-Level Deal Scrutiny

State-enforcement challenges to the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger remind legal practitioners that federal approval isn't always sufficient to deliver certainty on closing, integration and timetable assumptions, says Brett Story at Britehorn Securities.

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Series

Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

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Brief

Colorado Passes Bill Banning Fee Sharing With Nonlawyers

By Emily Sawicki

The Colorado Legislature has approved a bill to bar attorneys and law firms operating in the state from sharing fees and revenue with non-attorney-owned firms, known as alternative business structure firms, making Colorado the latest state to tamp down the practice.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen singer Rita Ora be sued by her management company, the billionaire Gertner brothers file a part 8 claim and Stephenson Harwood lodge a debt claim against a member of the Bulgari jewelry dynasty. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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K&L Gates To Part Ways With Singapore Law Firm

By Aebra Coe

K&L Gates LLP plans to separate from the Singapore law firm it combined with in 2019, while maintaining a presence in the city state, the firm announced on Friday.

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Girardi Trial Judge Josephine Staton To Take Senior Status

By Ryan Boysen

The California federal judge who sentenced disgraced trial attorney Tom Girardi to prison for wire fraud last year has announced that she'll be taking senior status in the fall, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint her successor.

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MMA Law To Shutter Under Ch. 11 Liquidation Plan

By Alex Wittenberg

Houston firm MMA Law has filed a Chapter 11 liquidation plan in Texas bankruptcy court, saying it plans to shut down its business and appoint an administrator to prosecute claims against multiple law firms.

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Roundup

Balancing The Scales: Justices To Revisit Sentencing Rules

By Orlando Lorenzo

The U.S. Supreme Court will take a closer look at a circuit split over the deference that should be allotted to U.S. Sentencing Commission commentary, and a man convicted in the killing of an infant has been released after 27 years served over evidence that points to pneumonia as the likely cause of death.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal settled with the DOJ to end a probe into what the government agency said was a discriminatory investment program for Black- and minority-owned businesses. Meanwhile, Meta's global head of legal operations during a panel discussion predicted that the billable hour will be the exception — not the rule — in five years. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Haynes Boone lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts that have sent disputes to arbitration have jurisdiction to confirm or vacate subsequent awards.

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New Jersey AG Traces Her Path To Public Service

By George Woolston

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport talked shop at the State Bar Association's annual meeting, dishing on what it was like to get the call to be the state's top law enforcement officer, how her time as general counsel for a public utility informs her new role and what it's like to be both friend and foe to the federal government. The Cape May County native also revealed her favorite diner.

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ABA Section Votes To Scrap Law School DEI Standards

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association's legal education section on Friday voted to eliminate its requirements that law schools show a commitment to diversity in their student body in order to remain accredited, a policy that has been under fire since a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action in higher education.

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$19.2M Joint Juice Deal Ends Calif. False Ad Suit

By Mike Curley

A California federal judge has given final approval to a nearly $19.2 million settlement to end more than a decade of litigation alleging that the makers of Joint Juice misled consumers about its health benefits.

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Fed. Circ. Urges Justices To Reject Newman Suspension Case

By Ryan Davis

The Federal Circuit has urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Judge Pauline Newman's appeal targeting a suspension imposed on her by the court's other judges, arguing that a lower court correctly held that her challenges to the order are not subject to judicial review.

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