A proposed class action in California challenges Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI for alleged copyright violation around GitHub Copilot, an artificial intelligence (AI) powered open source code generating assistant. The lawsuit alleges that Copilot is trained on public repositories of code extracted from the web, some of which is licensed content. While the case is in the initial stages, and the defendants will argue that their use of code qualifies as fair use under US copyright law, the outcome of this lawsuit may have significant consequences for the future of generative AI.
Intellectual property rights
Meta won trademark lawsuit over Infinity Logo
A federal judge in California dismissed blockchain platform Dfinity Foundation’s trademark lawsuit over the infinity-symbol logo against Meta Platforms Inc. The judge ruled that the two logos were not similar enough to sustain the lawsuit, and given the targeted audience, it is unlikely to create any confusion among consumers.
In a trademark infringement lawsuit, Dfinity alleged that Meta copied its infinity-symbol logo, which was similar to the one used by Dfinity.
The court found that Meta’s logo was not likely to cause consumer confusion with Dfinity’s rainbow infinity logo as it is not similar either in shape or colour to Meta’s log.
The UK Intellectual Property Enterprise Court Guide
The UK Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, which handles cases relating to intellectual property disputes, has issued a detailed guide for businesses, lawyers, and attorneys on how to bring a case to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. The guide covers how the court’s processes function and offers recommendations where necessary, including how to:
- start a claim in the court
- serve the claim form
- write a statement of the case
- put together a trial bundle
Lawsuit challenges AI-based GitHub Copilot
Programmer and lawyer Matthew Butterick and several other litigators have filed a class action lawsuit in a US federal court against Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI over the legality of the GitHub Copilot – a tool that relies on artificial intelligence to suggest code and entire functions in real-time. The lawsuit argues these companies – by training their AI systems on public GitHub repositories – violate the legal rights of creators who posted code or other work under certain open-source licences on GitHub. It is further claimed that the companies make significant profits by scraping copyright materials from the web and training their software on copyright-protected data. While the case is still in its early stage, it may have significant ramifications for the future of AI and open-source licence practice.