Insights

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – June 6, 2024: Crowell & Moring earned 78 rankings for 67 lawyers, as well as 41 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2024 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – January 10, 2024: Crowell & Moring has published Litigation Forecast 2024: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know for the Coming Year. The 12th-annual Litigation Forecast focuses on trends in intellectual property, regulatory and other U.S. litigation, with special coverage of supply chain recovery and international litigation.

On October 24, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its highly anticipated ruling in the Kwantum v. Vitra case (C-227/23). In short, the CJEU held that EU Member States must afford copyright protection for works of applied art (i.e., furniture, lighting, home appliances, etc.) that meet the originality-requirement, regardless of the country of origin of these works or the nationality of the author.

Judge William Orrick in the Northern District of California has dismissed some claims in a lawsuit brought by visual artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt. The artists allege that the companies misused the artist’s copyrighted works in connection with the companies’ generative artificial intelligence systems and products. Judge Orrick dismissed all allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt, but gave Plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint. Judge Orrick also dismissed copyright infringement claims brought by McKernan, Ortiz, and others in the artists’ class who had not obtained copyright registrations, a prerequisite to filing a copyright claim, but is allowing Andersen to pursue her claim that Stability AI's use of her work to train Stable Diffusion infringed her copyrights.

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted review of an 11thCircuit ruling in the case of Nealy et al. v. Warner Chappell Music Inc. et al. The issue at hand is whether a copyright plaintiff can recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before filing the case. Specifically, the court will examine the application of the discovery accrual rule, which determines when the clock starts ticking for the statute of limitations in copyright infringement cases. Warner Chappell Music argues that a copyright plaintiff should not be able to recover damages for acts that occurred outside the three-year statute of limitations. The company aims to establish a precedent that would limit the timeframe in which copyright plaintiffs can seek additional damages.

After the recent barrage of lawsuits filed by copyright owners against artificial intelligence platforms, it will likely take a few years for the dust to settle on multiple legal issues surrounding the new technology and intellectual property rights, says Crowell & Moring partner David Ervin, who co-leads the firm’s Advertising & Brand Protection Group.