On April 28, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Celanese International Corp.’s challenge to a Federal Circuit decision which found the company’s patent on the process to create the artificial sweetener used in Coke Zero to be invalid. The Federal Circuit decision affirmed a holding from the U.S. International Trade Commission which initially deemed the patent invalid due to the on-sale bar.

The underlying issue in the case is whether Celanese’s patent, which covers an improved process for making acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), was invalid due to the on-sale bar. The ...

On May 1, 2025, a federal courtroom in San Francisco became ground zero for one of the most consequential copyright hearings in recent memory. The three hour hearing in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms marked the first major judicial test of whether using copyrighted works to train generative AI systems—like Meta’s LLaMA models—qualifies as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law. While Judge Vince Chhabria has yet to issue a formal decision, his comments during oral argument offer critical clues about how courts may approach this issue going forward.

Fair use, codified in 17 U.S.C. § ...

            On April 29, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived the copyright infringement case filed by Sound and Color, LLC against Sam Smith, Normani, and related parties (collectively, “Defendants”) concerning the hit song "Dancing with a Stranger" by reversing the District Court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of Defendants. In making its decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the importance of the jury’s role in assessing substantial similarity.

            Sound and Color initiated a copyright infringement case against Defendants based on its allegation that the ...