A C.D. Cal. ruling on April 28, 2026 illustrates the limits of the kitchen-sink complaint: when every claim turns on the same alleged copying, the Lanham Act and common law unfair competition claims fall to copyright preemption.

The Federal Circuit’s April 17, 2026 reversal in International Medical Devices, Inc. v. Cornell applies settled California trade secret law to vacate a $17 million-plus jury verdict and a five-year permanent injunction on two independent CUTSA grounds, either of which would have sufficed.

Grammarly’s “Expert Review” feature used the names of hundreds of real writers to sell AI-generated editing advice, without obtaining consent. A class action complaint in the Southern District of New York frames the case not as a copyright dispute, but as a straightforward violation of century-old right-of-publicity laws.

A federal court in the Northern District of California has enjoined OpenAI from using the name “Cameo” for a feature on its Sora video-generation application, finding that the celebrity video marketplace Cameo is likely to succeed on its trademark infringement claim. The ruling applies established trademark doctrine to AI feature branding and rejects OpenAI’s argument that “cameo” is merely descriptive.

On March 30, 2026, a Colorado federal court held that a pro se litigant’s AI-generated litigation materials are protected work product, then wrote its own protective order provision that effectively bars consumer AI platforms from processing confidential discovery materials.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed a $1 billion copyright verdict against Cox Communications, holding that an ISP is not contributorily liable for its subscribers’ infringement merely because it continues to serve known infringers. The decision also may have rendered the DMCA safe harbor obsolete.