Litigation

The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment in March 2026 charging three individuals tied to Super Micro Computer—two former employees and one contractor—with conspiring to violate U.S. export controls. The defendants allegedly diverted approximately $2.5 billion worth of servers containing advanced AI technology, including Nvidia chips, to China between 2024 and 2025. The indictment names co-founder and former senior vice president Yih‑Shyan "Wally" Liaw and a general manager from Super Micro's Taiwan office, who prosecutors say coordinated shipments through a third-party intermediary to circumvent export restrictions. Super Micro itself is not charged and has stated it was not accused of wrongdoing.

xAI filed suit on April 9, 2026, in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado to block enforcement of Colorado's SB24-205, a comprehensive AI anti-discrimination law scheduled to take effect June 30, 2026. The statute requires developers and deployers of high-risk AI systems—those used in hiring, lending, and admissions decisions—to conduct impact assessments, make disclosures, and implement risk mitigation measures to prevent algorithmic discrimination. Two weeks later, on April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened with its own complaint, arguing the law violates the Equal Protection Clause by compelling demographic adjustments through disparate-impact liability while simultaneously authorizing discrimination through exemptions for diversity initiatives. The court granted DOJ's intervention and issued a stay suspending enforcement pending resolution.

Anthropic has asked a California federal judge to rule that its use of copyrighted materials to train Claude qualifies as transformative fair use, comparing the AI's training process to how humans learn by reading and absorbing themes. The filing stands apart from the $1.5 billion class-action settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic, where the claims deadline passed on March 30, 2026, and a fairness hearing is scheduled for May 14, 2026, in San Francisco federal court.

Singer Dua Lipa sued Samsung for $15 million on May 8, 2026, in federal court in California, alleging copyright infringement, trademark infringement, right of publicity violations, and false endorsement under state law and the Lanham Act. The dispute centers on a backstage photograph taken at the 2024 Austin City Limits Festival—an image Lipa owns—that Samsung allegedly manipulated and used on television packaging and global marketing materials beginning in early 2025 without permission, payment, or her involvement. Lipa claims the placement implied her endorsement of Samsung products and drove sales.

Greg Brockman's personal diary emerged this week as central evidence in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, with the co-founder and president testifying about his internal deliberations over converting the organization from nonprofit to for-profit status. The diary directly addresses Musk's core claim that OpenAI deceived him by abandoning its original mission to develop artificial intelligence for humanity's benefit. Testimony also revealed inflammatory communications: text messages in which Musk threatened to make Brockman and CEO Sam Altman "the most hated men in America" if no settlement was reached, and a 2017 meeting where Musk tore a painting from the wall after cofounders rejected his demand for majority equity.

The Federal Circuit reversed a jury verdict in International Medical Devices, Inc. v. Cornell, holding that cosmetic penile implant designs alleged as trade secrets were not protectable under California law because they had been disclosed in publicly available patents. The court found the designs "generally known" and therefore ineligible for trade secret status. A fourth alleged secret—a list of surgical instruments sent via email without confidentiality markings—also failed protection due to insufficient secrecy measures. The panel reversed findings of trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract under the parties' nondisclosure agreement, and improper inventorship claims related to two Penuma patents. The court affirmed $1 million in statutory damages for trademark counterfeiting.

A federal judge in the Southern District of Florida dismissed a class-action lawsuit under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act against Professional Parking Management Corporation, finding the plaintiff lacked Article III standing. The suit alleged the company used license plate readers in private parking lots, cross-referenced plates against state DMV records without consent, and mailed notices demanding $94.99—styled to resemble official citations—for unpaid parking charges. The plaintiff sought nationwide class certification and added Florida consumer-protection claims.

A federal magistrate judge in Colorado issued a stay on April 27, 2026, freezing enforcement of the Colorado AI Act (SB24-205) just weeks before its scheduled June 30 effective date. The order prevents the Colorado Attorney General from initiating investigations or enforcement actions under the law, effectively halting one of the country's most comprehensive state AI regulations. Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser voluntarily committed not to enforce the law or begin rulemaking until after the legislative session concludes.

Tyrone Blackburn, the attorney representing Liza Gardner in a sexual assault civil suit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, faces a contempt hearing in New Jersey federal court over unpaid sanctions tied to AI-generated case citations. U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman ordered Blackburn to pay $6,000 in December 2025—$500 monthly—after finding that a brief he filed contained a fabricated case opinion produced by an artificial intelligence research tool. The case cited did not exist.

Jury selection began April 28 in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. Opening statements occurred April 29. Musk alleges OpenAI breached its 2015 nonprofit founding agreement by converting to a for-profit model in 2019 with Microsoft backing, abandoning its stated mission to develop AI for humanity's benefit. He invested $38–45 million in the company. Musk seeks OpenAI's return to nonprofit status, removal of Altman and Brockman from leadership, and $134–150 billion in damages to be redirected to OpenAI's charitable arm.

The Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision on April 29, 2026, in Federal Express Corporation v. Qualcomm Incorporated that significantly narrows appellate review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions. The court held that challenges to the PTAB's handling of real-party-in-interest disputes under 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(2) cannot be appealed. The ruling treats RPI objections as integral to the institution decision itself, placing them beyond the scope of review under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d), which makes all institution rulings final and unreviewable absent constitutional violations or actions outside the agency's statutory authority.

A former in-house attorney at Workday has settled and dismissed the remaining claims in his 2023 employment discrimination lawsuit against the HR software company. The voluntary dismissal followed settlement discussions and was reported on April 24, 2026.

Tesla faces coordinated class-action litigation across multiple jurisdictions from owners of Hardware 3-equipped vehicles manufactured between 2016 and 2024. The plaintiffs allege that Tesla and Elon Musk made false representations that these vehicles would achieve full self-driving capability through software updates alone. A spring 2026 software release exposed Hardware 3's technical limitations, effectively excluding millions of owners from advanced autonomous features now reserved for newer Hardware 4 systems. The lead case, brought by retired attorney Tom LoSavio, centers on buyers who paid $8,000 to $12,000 for full self-driving capability that is now incompatible with their vehicles without costly hardware retrofits Tesla has not formally offered. Similar suits have been filed in Australia, the Netherlands, across Europe, and in California, where one action involves approximately 3,000 plaintiffs. Globally, the disputes affect roughly 4 million vehicles.

Elon Musk testified April 28 in a California courtroom that OpenAI breached a foundational promise by converting from nonprofit to for-profit status. Now valued at $852 billion, OpenAI made the shift despite Musk's 2017 warning that the company should either remain nonprofit or operate independently. "It is not OK to steal a charity," Musk told the court, referencing email exchanges with Sam Altman in which Altman expressed support for the nonprofit model but acknowledged no legal obligation bound the company to it permanently.

On May 8, 2026, The National Law Review and Varnum LLP published advisory articles warning clients against misusing consumer AI tools in legal matters. The pieces detail a specific risk: uploading privileged documents—draft agreements, legal memos, work product—into platforms like ChatGPT or Claude waives attorney-client privilege by exposing confidential information to third parties with no confidentiality obligations. The articles also caution that AI models tend to validate user assumptions rather than provide objective legal analysis, making them unreliable validators of legal advice.

A federal magistrate judge issued a temporary restraining order on April 27, 2026, blocking Colorado from enforcing its artificial intelligence antidiscrimination law (SB 24-205). The order freezes all state investigations and enforcement actions while litigation proceeds and shields companies from penalties for violations occurring within 14 days after the court rules on a preliminary injunction motion. The law was set to take effect June 30.

On April 16, 2026, the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a consumer class action against Brita Products Company, holding that a reasonable consumer would not expect a $15 water filter to remove all hazardous contaminants. Plaintiff Nicholas Brown sued under California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, claiming Brita's labels for its Everyday Pitcher and Standard Filter misled buyers into believing the products eliminated contaminants like arsenic, chromium-6, PFOA, PFOS, nitrates, and radium to undetectable levels. The three-judge panel, led by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, rejected the claims after the Los Angeles district court had already dismissed without leave to amend in September 2024.

Judge Amit Mehta is considering imposing Rule 11 professional sanctions against the top three lawyers at the Trump Department of Justice after they filed a motion in a White House ballroom construction case that courts and legal observers characterized as legally deficient and improper. The filing, submitted by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's office in support of a ballroom project on the site of the former East Wing, abandoned standard legal argumentation in favor of political rhetoric—including references to "Trump Derangement Syndrome," labeling opposing arguments "FAKE," and praising the President as a "highly successful real estate developer."

A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that a financial services executive waived attorney-client privilege and work product protection by using Anthropic's Claude AI tool without his lawyers' involvement. In United States v. Heppner, Judge Jed S. Rakoff ordered disclosure of 31 strategy documents the defendant generated after inputting case details derived from attorney communications. The court found that Claude, as a non-attorney third party, lacks fiduciary duties, and that Anthropic's privacy policy—which permits data use for training and third-party sharing—destroyed any reasonable expectation of confidentiality. This marks the first federal decision of its kind, rejecting the defendant's argument that later sharing the materials with counsel could retroactively restore privilege protection.

On April 1, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a consolidated decision in Clay v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. holding that Illinois' August 2024 amendment to the Biometric Information Privacy Act applies retroactively to all pending cases. The amendment, enacted as SB 2979, caps statutory damages at one recovery per person per biometric collection method—eliminating the "per-scan" liability model that had exposed defendants to exponentially higher exposure. The court reversed three unanimous district court decisions from the Northern District of Illinois that had ruled the amendment applied only to future claims.

Courts nationwide have sanctioned attorneys for submitting briefs containing fabricated case citations generated by artificial intelligence tools. Rather than targeting the technology itself, judges have held lawyers personally accountable for failing to verify AI output before filing. A Massachusetts attorney faced discipline for citing fictitious cases produced by AI systems. In the federal case Flycatcher Corporation v. Affable Avenue, a judge imposed severe sanctions including a default judgment after the defendant's attorney repeatedly cited fabricated cases despite warnings. These decisions reflect a judicial consensus that reliance on unverified AI constitutes a breach of professional responsibility, regardless of whether the attorney or the system originated the error.

Justin McCallon, CEO of StrongSuit, published commentary on Law360 arguing that AI-driven automation will reshape legal work—but only if it clears a uniquely high bar. Unlike most industries, litigation tolerates near-zero error rates. McCallon positioned StrongSuit's platform, which automates legal research, drafting, and document review, as engineered specifically for this constraint rather than general-purpose AI capability.

Supply chain disputes are escalating into courtroom battles as manufacturers in beauty, fashion, and automotive sectors clash with suppliers over pricing, delivery failures, and contract breaches. Courts are tightening defenses for performance failures, and litigation risk is climbing as capacity remains tight, freight costs stay volatile, and force majeure clauses have been narrowed. A December 2025 trademark case—Palas v. Le Domaine (Case No. 2:25-cv-11953, C.D. Cal.)—exemplifies the broader trend, pitting skincare founder Brandon Palas's "Beau D." brand against Brad Pitt's French luxury line over cosmetics trademark infringement.

On February 17, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in United States v. Heppner that a criminal defendant's communications with Anthropic's Claude AI platform were not protected by attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. The defendant had used the public chatbot to create analysis documents after receiving a grand jury subpoena, then claimed privilege when sharing them with counsel. The court ordered disclosure to the government.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed all eight counts in a privacy lawsuit against Paramount Skydance Corporation on April 20, 2026, finding that plaintiffs lacked legal standing. The court ruled plaintiffs failed to demonstrate an injury aligned with harms traditionally recognized under American law. The complaint had alleged violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, California Invasion of Privacy Act, common law invasion of privacy, California constitutional privacy rights, negligence, breach of implied contract, and unjust enrichment.

The Association of Corporate Counsel filed an amicus brief on April 8, 2026, urging the California Court of Appeal to clarify that the California Invasion of Privacy Act does not extend to routine website technologies like cookies, tracking pixels, and analytics metadata. ACC argues that plaintiffs are mischaracterizing these tools as "pen registers" or "trap and trace devices"—law enforcement surveillance mechanisms that require court orders under CIPA—when they serve ordinary business functions. The brief, authored by Fisher Phillips attorneys Usama Kahf, Darcey Groden, and David Shannon, contends that applying CIPA's warrant requirement to standard web analytics creates untenable compliance burdens for businesses nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang sanctioned attorney Christopher Kachouroff and his law firm $5,000 on May 8, 2026, for submitting a defamation brief with a materially incorrect citation while defending MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. The error was obvious and reflected failure to reasonably review the document before filing, Wang ruled, rejecting Kachouroff's human error explanation. Lindell, his media company, and co-counsel Jennifer T. DeMaster escaped penalty on this sanction, though DeMaster faced consequences in an earlier ruling.

The Federal Circuit reversed a Delaware district court's grant of equitable estoppel in Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft v. Sirius XM Radio Inc. (Fed. Cir. No. 23-2267, June 9, 2025), reviving Fraunhofer's patent infringement claims on four expired patents covering multicarrier modulation technology for satellite radio. The appellate panel found that while Fraunhofer's five-year silence (2010-2015) about SXM's use of the patents constituted misleading conduct, SXM failed to prove it actually relied on that silence when migrating to its accused high-band system. The court determined that market penetration, not Fraunhofer's inaction, drove SXM's technology choices, and remanded for further proceedings.

On April 23, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a class action alleging violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act. Plaintiff Sherhonda Golden sued NBCUniversal Media over Today.com's use of a Facebook Pixel—tracking code that transmitted her Facebook ID and video-viewing history to Meta without her consent. The Second Circuit ruled that the transmitted data did not constitute "personally identifiable information" under the VPPA because an ordinary person could not readily connect it to her identity and viewing habits without technical expertise.

The Eastern District of Virginia has denied Alarm.com's motion to dismiss a trade secrets lawsuit brought by former partner SkyBell Technologies. SkyBell accused Alarm.com of misappropriating video doorbell technology and poaching employees after the companies' partnership ended in late 2022. Alarm.com had argued the three-year statute of limitations under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act barred SkyBell's July 2025 complaint. Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. rejected that defense, holding that SkyBell could not have discovered the alleged misappropriation earlier because a 2015 Development and Integration Agreement between the parties explicitly prohibited reverse engineering and required confidentiality—contractual restrictions that remained in force until the agreement terminated in November 2022.

On April 1, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit unanimously held that Illinois' August 2024 amendment to the Biometric Information Privacy Act applies retroactively to all pending cases. In Clay v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. (consolidated with Willis and Gregg), the court classified the amendment as procedural rather than substantive, allowing it to govern cases filed before its effective date. The amendment fundamentally restructures BIPA damages by capping recovery at $1,000 per violation for negligent violations and $5,000 for intentional ones—eliminating the "per-scan" theory that previously allowed plaintiffs to multiply damages across each biometric collection or transmission event.

On April 14, 2026, Magistrate Judge Tim A. Baker of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana issued an order in White v. Walmart (Case No. 25-cv-01120) sanctioning plaintiff's counsel for relying exclusively on artificial intelligence to identify deficiencies in the defendant's discovery responses. The court held that while AI can serve as a useful tool, it cannot substitute for attorney judgment and does not satisfy the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure's requirement that parties meet and confer in good faith before escalating discovery disputes.

On April 17, the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court's dismissal of a putative class action alleging Target sold 100% cotton bedsheets with fraudulent thread counts. Plaintiff Alexander Panelli claimed he purchased sheets labeled 800-thread-count in September 2023 that tested at only 288 threads per inch. He asserted the label was literally false under California consumer protection law, since 600 thread count is the physical maximum for pure cotton. The district court had dismissed the case, reasoning no reasonable consumer would believe an impossible claim. Target argued the thread count measurement itself was ambiguous and therefore not deceptive as a matter of law.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has sanctioned Salem attorney William Ghiorso with a $10,000 fine for submitting an opening brief containing at least 15 fabricated case citations and 9 nonexistent quotations. The court attributed the errors to AI "hallucinations"—instances where generative AI generated convincing but false legal information. The penalty marks the first time an Oregon appellate court has considered attorney fees as a sanction alternative to fines, though it ultimately imposed the monetary penalty after Ghiorso implemented new safeguards.

A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia approved a $425 million class action settlement against Capital One on April 20, 2026, resolving claims that the bank deceptively marketed its legacy 360 Savings accounts while paying substantially lower interest rates than its newer 360 Performance Savings product launched in 2019. Eligible account holders—those who maintained a 360 Savings account from September 18, 2019, through June 16, 2025—will receive automatic restitution calculated based on lost interest earnings. Payments, distributed via check or electronic transfer, are expected around July 21, 2026, after deduction of legal fees.