Thomson Reuters Urges Third Circuit to Block Ross Intelligence’s Copyright Appeal

Thomson Reuters Centre GmbH has requested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to deny Ross Intelligence Inc.’s attempt to reverse a key copyright ruling in a closely watched lawsuit concerning AI training practices. According to Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters argued that granting Ross’s request would open the door to excessive midstream appeals in standard legal disputes.

The legal clash stems from Thomson Reuters’ accusation that Ross Intelligence improperly used material from its Westlaw legal research platform to train an AI-driven search engine. Per Bloomberg, Ross originally approached Thomson Reuters seeking a license to utilize Westlaw’s content but was turned down. Subsequently, Ross worked with a third-party research company to create approximately 25,000 “Bulk Memos,” which included legal questions and sample answers. However, many of these memos reportedly drew heavily from Westlaw’s copyrighted headnotes, leading to the current infringement claims.

Read more: Copyright Lawsuits Against OpenAI and Microsoft Consolidated in New York

Thomson Reuters emphasized in its latest court filing that Ross’s petition for an interlocutory appeal fails to raise a broad legal issue or demonstrate that appellate intervention would expedite the resolution of the case. According to Bloomberg, the company stressed that the issues at hand are routine and should not qualify for an early appeal, warning that approval could encourage similar strategies in ordinary litigation, overwhelming appellate courts.

The underlying case, filed after Ross’s development efforts came to light, centers on Westlaw’s organizational system, which includes headnotes summarizing key legal principles and cases under its proprietary “Key Number” system. In 2023, a federal court largely denied summary judgment motions from both sides, but allowed renewed briefing ahead of trial, signaling the complexity and significance of the dispute.