US Third Circuit zeroes in on fair use, not copyrightability, in Ross appeal
By Melissa Ritti and Emma Whitford ( June 11, 2026, 21:23 GMT | Comment) -- Judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit spent much of Thursday's oral argument probing whether Ross Intelligence built a market substitute for Westlaw and whether its use of Thomson Reuters’ copyrighted materials was transformative. Their focus could signal a willingness to confront the AI-training fair-use question head on, rather than decide the appeal on narrower copyrightability grounds.The question of whether Westlaw headnotes authored by Thomson Reuters attorney-editors are sufficiently creative to warrant copyright protection and — if so — whether their use by Ross Intelligence to develop an artificial intelligence-powered legal research tool qualifies as fair is now before the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit....
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