Summary
Thomson Reuters sued ROSS Intelligence in May 2020, alleging the AI/legal research company unlawfully copied content from Thomson Reuter’s legal research platform Westlaw for the purpose of training its AI-based platform. In February 2025, the court granted summary judgment that such copying was not fair use, emphasizing that the purpose of ROSS’s copying was to build a directly competing product.
What We’re Watching
The summary judgment that Ross’s copying was not fair use will play a large role in generative AI cases. While there are remaining issues for the jury trial, we’re more interested in how this fair use decision will shape precedent—whether this decision is appealed and how other courts will interpret it.