Overview
- The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower-court summary judgment on Tuesday that favored Thomson Reuters and against ROSS Intelligence on the two issues the appeal raised.
- The court held that Westlaw headnotes meet the minimal originality needed for copyright, because editors choose which issues to highlight and how to summarize them.
- The panel ruled ROSS’s use of those headnotes to train a non‑generative legal‑search tool was not fair use, citing ROSS’s competitive purpose and likely harm to Westlaw’s market for research features.
- The opinion, which was issued under seal before parties sought redactions, distinguishes this fact‑specific case from disputes over generative large language models and stops short of a broad rule for all AI training.
- Publishers hailed the decision as support for a licensing market, ROSS says it will seek Supreme Court review, and remaining issues such as expired copyrights, other headnotes, and damages will go to trial in Delaware.