The protracted copyright battle between legal research behemoth Thomson Reuters and defunct legal research startup ROSS Intelligence sees yet another twist as both parties attempt to leverage the recent 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in American Society for Testing & Materials v. UpCodes, Inc. to bolster their respective positions. The court has called for supplemental briefs from both sides to elucidate the impact of the April decision on their ongoing appeal.
Both parties submitted their briefs by May 11, demonstrating diverging interpretations of the UpCodes ruling, which distinctly frames the core conflict of the appeal. This litigation centers on whether the use of copyrighted materials to train AI models for legal research platforms constitutes fair use.
- ROSS Intelligence: The now-defunct startup argues that UpCodes mandates a reversal of the district court’s unfavorable ruling. They claim the precedent set by UpCodes provides a clear affirmation that their use of legal materials for AI development aligns with fair use principles, mirroring how UpCodes was deemed transformative in its purpose.
- Thomson Reuters: Conversely, the established firm sees no corollary in UpCodes that impacts its case. Thomson Reuters contends the ruling actually underscores why ROSS’s actions do not meet the fair use criteria. They emphasize a clear distinction between accessing legally incorporated standards, relevant in UpCodes, versus ROSS’s attempt to replicate Westlaw’s service through commercial means.
ROSS’s stance hinges on the argument that their AI’s law-training endeavor parallels the dissemination mission seen in UpCodes. Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters aligns its argument with established case law references, such as Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, which corroborates their position against ROSS’s alleged market substitution.
The 3rd Circuit’s decision will likely further define the intersection of copyright and emerging AI technologies in legal research. As both parties await, the court’s analysis will address whether fair use boundaries, as discussed in UpCodes, apply more broadly or remain constrained to its unique circumstances.