TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2026
Artificial Intelligence
USA
Second Circuit affirms $900,000 attorneys’ fee award against attorneys who pursued unreasonable trademark infringement case. Balestriere Fariello v. Gimlet Media, Inc., No. 24-2155 (2d Cir. Oct. 15, 2025).
In 2015, Reply All Corp., which owned a Registration for REPLYALL for “Computer services,More
USA
Anthropic case settled: Bartz v. Anthropic, No. C 24-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
In 2024, three authors filed a class action against Anthropic, maker of the AI chatbot Claude.
During discovery, plaintiffs learned that Anthropic purchased millions of new and used books,More
USA
USA – Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Drag Queen’s Claim Against Netflix
Lance Hara, a “well-known Drag Queen in Hollywood” professionally known as Vicky Vox, sued Netflix. The suit concerned Netflix’s use of Vox’s likeness and persona (but not her name) in an animated series,More
Bartz v. Anthropic PBC
In the last week, two different federal district judges in the Northern District of California issued rulings in the first substantive decisions addressing whether use of extensive copyrighted material to train generative AI models is permissible fair use.More
Delaware – August 1 deadline for businesses to preserve DBA names on a statewide basis
Prior to a new law enacted this year, companies that wanted to register DBA names in Delaware had to do so in each county they wanted to use them in,More
USA – U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York allows NY Times AI case to go forward; denies motion to dismiss case as time-barred.
The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation – Civil Action No. 23-cv-11195 (SHS) (April 4,More
USA – U.S. Supreme Court: Successful trademark infringement plaintiff cannot recover profits from a non-party affiliate of the defendant.
Dewberry Group, Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers Inc., No. 23-900, February 26, 2025.
Dewberry Engineers owns a registration for DEWBERRY for real estate services.More
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York recently issued opinions dismissing Xu vs. Reuters News & Media Inc. (putative class action) and Gabrielli v. Insider, Inc., cases in which plaintiffs asserted claims for illegal use of a pen register under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”),More
To date, comprehensive U.S. state privacy laws, with limited exception, do not provide private rights of action. Enterprising plaintiffs’ lawyers, however, have invoked the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) with increasing frequency as an alternative method to bring individual and class action privacy-related claims against companies that disclose the viewing history of consumers who have accessed video content on their websites.More