AI news · Copyright
Appeals court rejects fair use for Ross’s AI training on Westlaw
The Third Circuit upheld the finding that Ross Intelligence infringed Thomson Reuters’ headnotes, the first appellate ruling on AI training.
A US appeals court ruled on Tuesday 29 September 2026 that Ross Intelligence had no fair use defence. Ross trained its legal search tool on Westlaw material. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit affirmed the February 2025 trial ruling in a one-word order, Copyright Lately reports.
No federal appeals court had ruled on fair use in AI training before. Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves wrote the opinion. It stays sealed until the panel settles redactions. The trial court found that Ross, now defunct, infringed 2,243 Westlaw headnotes, the short summaries of points of law that editors attach to court decisions.
Thomson Reuters sued in 2020. At trial, Judge Stephanos Bibas held that Ross built a rival to Westlaw from its headnotes, for the same use and the same buyers, MediaPost reports. Tech groups including NetChoice backed Ross on appeal. Publishers and film studios, Disney among them, backed Thomson Reuters.
Ross’s tool did not generate text, so the ruling leaves the suits against chatbot makers open. Their lawyers wait for the unsealed reasoning on transformative use and harm to licensing markets. For buyers of AI tools, that reasoning sets how much training-data risk sits with the vendors they pay.
Sources
- Copyright Lately: Signed, Sealed, Affirmed: Third Circuit Backs Thomson Reuters over ROSS. Checked
- MediaPost: Appeals Court Sides With Thomson Reuters In Battle Over AI Training. Checked
Alexander Bleu
Alexander Bleu is a creative strategist and copywriter with ten years in content and SEO. He writes and edits short-form ads, works in English and French, and reads the pricing and terms pages behind every tool on this site before anything is written about it.
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