Court decision · 11 February 2025
Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. Ross Intelligence Inc.
No. 1:20-cv-613 (D. Del. Feb. 11, 2025) (Bibas, J.) · U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
On appeal. Interlocutory appeal certified to the Third Circuit.
What it means for your code
Training a competing AI product on a rival's copyrighted content is high-risk; document the provenance and licences of training data.
What happened
Ross used Westlaw headnotes, obtained via a third party, to train a competing AI legal-research tool.
What was decided
Ross's use of the headnotes was not fair use: the use was commercial, not transformative, and harmed the market for Westlaw including as AI training data. Interlocutory appeal was certified to the Third Circuit.
The legal test applied
- Commercial, non-transformative use of copyrighted material to build a competing product weighs against fair use
- Market harm includes the potential market for licensing the material as AI training data
What would have changed the outcome
- Generative, non-competing uses
- Lawfully licensed training data
Summary and analysis by Lawpatch, checked by an editor against the source. Risk analysis, not legal advice; the law may have moved on since this decision.