Latest news with #VinceChhabria
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
Meta fends off trademark lawsuit from tech staffing company Metabyte
Aug 18 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab has convinced a federal judge in California to dismiss a lawsuit claiming its name infringes a trademark belonging to staffing and tech-services company Metabyte. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said on Friday, opens new tab that Metabyte could not show Meta's name would mislead consumers into thinking the two companies were affiliated, and that the case was "not a close call." Metabyte CEO Manu Mehta said that the ruling "risks setting a troubling precedent that disadvantages smaller brand owners" and the company is reviewing its appeal options. An attorney and spokespeople for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Metabyte is one of several companies that sued Meta Platforms for trademark infringement following its 2021 rebrand from Facebook. Fremont, California-based Metabyte said in its 2023 lawsuit that Meta Platforms' name would confuse consumers, arguing that the two companies offer related services and cover overlapping geographic areas. Metabyte also asked the court to cancel the tech giant's "Meta" trademark because the term was generic. Chhabria ruled for Meta on Friday and said Metabyte had "presented virtually no evidence of confusion on the part of prospective employees, and no evidence at all that any such confusion had any effect on Metabyte's business." He also affirmed the validity of Meta's trademark. The case is Metabyte Inc v. Meta Platforms Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:23-cv-04862. For Metabyte: Karthik Murthy of Murthy Patent Law For Meta: Bobby Ghajar and Judd Lauter of Cooley Read more: Meta Platforms hit with US trademark lawsuit from tech company Metabyte
Epoch Times
a day ago
- Health
- Epoch Times
Judge Orders Health Officials to Stop Sharing Some Medicaid Data With Immigration Authorities
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must stop sharing some Medicaid data with immigration officials, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said on Aug. 12 that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a component of HHS, failed to 'carry out a reasoned decisionmaking process' before deciding to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Hill
5 days ago
- Health
- The Hill
Judge temporarily blocks Medicaid data sharing with ICE officials
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Department of Health and Human Services from sharing the personal data of every Medicaid enrollee with immigration officials. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction on Aug. 12 blocking the Department of Homeland Security from using Medicaid data obtained from 20 states for immigration enforcement purposes. It also blocks HHS from sharing Medicaid data obtained from this coalition of states with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immigration enforcement purposes. The preliminary injunction will remain in place either until 14 days after HHS and DHS complete a 'reasoned decisionmaking process' that complies with the Administrative Procedure Act, or until litigation concludes. Chhabria wrote that while there is nothing 'categorically unlawful' about DHS obtaining data from agencies like HHS for immigration enforcement purposes, ICE has had a well-publicized policy against using Medicaid data for that explicit purpose since 2013. Similarly, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has long maintained a policy of only using patients' personal information to run its health care programs, and has publicized that on its website. 'Given these policies, and given that the various players in the Medicaid system have relied on them, it was incumbent upon the agencies to carry out a reasoned decisionmaking process before changing them,' Chhabria wrote. 'The record in this case strongly suggests that no such process occurred.' In July, California led a multistate coalition in filing a lawsuit against the Trump Administration arguing that the mass transfer of Medicaid data violated the law, and asked the court to block any new transfer or use of the data for immigration enforcement purposes. The data transfer, first reported by The Associated Press in June, showed that Medicaid officials unsuccessfully sought to block the data transfer, but were overruled by top advisers to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The dataset includes the information of people living in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C., all of which allow non-U.S. citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. 'The Trump Administration's move to use Medicaid data for immigration enforcement upended longstanding policy protections without notice or consideration for the consequences,' California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. 'As the President continues to overstep his authority in his inhumane anti-immigrant crusade, this is a clear reminder that he remains bound by the law.'
Mint
01-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
SAP Wins Early Round in US Legal Fight With Celonis
S SE won an early round in a lawsuit filed in the US by one of Europe's most valuable startups accusing the German technology giant of illegally wielding its market power. A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday dismissed antitrust claims by Celonis SE that S blocked access to data in its systems to give an unfair advantage to its own Signavio unit. The judge said Celonis can try to revise and refile the claims. Celonis and Signavio both offer process mining software to find inefficiencies within business enterprise systems and eliminate them. S is the world's largest vendor for Enterprise Resource Planning software, including bookkeeping and procurement solutions. The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment. After the court held a hearing a week ago and the judge spoke about how he intended to rule, a spokeswoman for Celonis said via email the company was pleased interference claims would move forward. 'We believe that businesses should have the freedom to select the best technology solutions' without 'interference, misinformation or unfair restrictions,' she said, adding Celonis would continue to defend these principles. A spokeswoman for S said in an email at the time that 'S continues to reject Celonis' claims' and S would 'continue to vigorously defend' itself and its innovations. US District Judge Vince Chhabria allowed a claim of interference with contractual relations to move forward and said that pretrial fact-finding known as discovery can begin immediately. Chhabria wrote in his ruling that Celonis alleged 'that S's conduct has caused multiple Celonis customers to consider not renewing their contracts and has required Celonis to reassure those customers to prevent them from doing so.' The judge said this was 'plausibly a disruption to Celonis's contractual relationships.' William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University, said Celonis appeared to be testing a novel antitrust theory. 'It's a theory of harm that hasn't been broadly accepted by the courts, and it's a theory of harm that's been developed to try to overcome earlier jurisprudence that gives dominant firms a lot of freedom to do what they want,' he said. The case is Celonis SE v. S SE, 3:25-cv-02519, US District Court, District of Northern California . This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Meta Wins Case Over Its Use of Copyright-Protected Content to Train AI
This story was originally published on Social Media Today. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Social Media Today newsletter. One of the most significant (yet less flashy) considerations of the new wave of generative AI tools is the copyright implications of such, both in terms of usage (can you own the rights to an AI-generated work?) and generation (are AI projects stealing artists' work?). And both, at least at present, fall into somewhat awkward legal territory, because copyright laws, as they exist, haven't been designed to cater to AI content. Which means that, technically, it remains difficult to prosecute, on either front. Today, Meta has had a big court win on this front, with a federal judge ruling that Meta did not violate copyright law in training its AI models on original works. Back in 2023, a group of authors, including high-profile comedian Sarah Silverman, launched legal action against both Meta and OpenAI over the use of their copyrighted works to train their respective AI systems. The authors were able to show that these AI models were capable of reproducing their work in highly accurate form, which they claim demonstrates that both Meta and OpenAI used their legally protected material without consent. The lawsuit also alleges that both Meta and OpenAI removed the copyright information from their books to hide this infringement. In his assessment, Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that Meta's use of these works was considered 'transformative,' in that the purpose of Meta's process is not to re-create competing works, necessarily, but to facilitate all new uses of their language. As per the judgment: 'The purpose of Meta's copying was to train its LLMs, which are innovative tools that can be used to generate diverse text and perform a wide range of functions. Users can ask Llama to edit an email they have written, translate an excerpt from or into a foreign language, write a skit based on a hypothetical scenario, or do any number of other tasks. The purpose of the plaintiffs' books, by contrast, is to be read for entertainment or education.' As such, the judge ruled that because the re-use of the works was not intended to create a competing market for these works, the application of 'fair use' in this case applies. But there are a lot of provisos in the ruling. First, the judge notes that the case 'presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,' and without that element spelled out in the arguments, Meta's defense that it can use these works under fair use is applicable. Just judge also notes that: 'In cases involving uses like Meta's, it seems like the plaintiffs will often win, at least where those cases have better-developed records on the market effects of the defendant's use. No matter how transformative LLM training may be, it's hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars while enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books. And some cases might present even stronger arguments against fair use.' So essentially, the judge is saying that while the intention of use in this case is not to facilitate the creation of competing works, thereby harming the copyright holders and their capacity to generate income from their work, it's inarguable that AI models will facilitate such. But in this instance, the case against Meta did not state this element clearly enough to find in the plaintiffs' favor. So while it may seem like a blow for artists, enabling generative AI projects to essentially steal their work for their own purpose, the judge is really saying that there is likely a legal case that would apply, and would potentially enable artists to argue that such use is in violation of copyright. But this particular case hasn't made it. Though that's still not great for artists seeking legal protection against generative AI projects, and unlicensed usage of their work. Just last week, a federal judge ruled in favor of Anthropic in a similar case, which essentially enables the company to continue training its models on copyright-protected content. The sticking point here is the argument of 'far use,' and what constitutes 'fair' in the context of re-use for alternative purpose. Fair use law is generally designed to apply to journalists and academics, in reporting on material that serves an educational purpose, even if the copyright holder may disagree with that usage. Do LLMs, and AI projects, fall into that same category? Well, under the legal definition, yes, because the intent is not to re-create such work, but to facilitate new usage based on elements of it. I guess, in that sense, an individual artist may be able to win a case where an AI work has clearly replicated theirs, though that replication would have to be indisputably clear, and there would also, presumably, have to be a level of benefit gleaned by the AI creator to justify such. And also, people can't copyright AI-generated works, so that's another wrinkle in the AI legality puzzle. There's also a whole other element in both of these cases which relates to how both Meta and Anthropic accessed these copyright-protected materials in the first place, amid claims that these have been stolen off dark web databases for mass-training. None of those claims have been proven as yet, though that's a separate factor which relates to a different type of content theft. So where do we stand on legal use of generative AI content? Yeah, it's pretty unclear, and the judge in this case is saying that there may be a different legal argument that could win in such a case. But this isn't it, and because the laws haven't been designed with AI in mind, what exactly the legal case needs to be is not entirely clear. But we haven't established a precedent to stop AI training on copyright-protected works as yet. Recommended Reading Meta To Face Legal Scrutiny Over the Use of Copyright Protected Works To Train AI Models Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
