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Relator's Detailed Allegations Cannot Overcome Public Disclosure Bar

Client Alert | 1 min read | 03.04.13

In U.S. ex rel. Mateski v. Raytheon Co. (C.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2013), the district court dismissed the qui tam relator's action under the pre-2010 "public disclosure" provision, holding that, although the relator's allegations were much more specific than the information which had been publicly disclosed in the media, congressional hearings, and administrative reports, the broadly worded public disclosures on the same topics were sufficient to supply the government with enough information to initiate an investigation and, therefore, barred the action. The court rejected the relator's novel suggestion that it apply a Rule 9(b) particularity requirement to the publicly disclosed information, and it rejected his contention that he was an original source because (a) he had no hand in the public disclosure (a requirement which not all circuits apply), (b) he failed to provide his information to the government before filing suit, and (c) he could not demonstrate that he saw the fraud with his own eyes.


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Client Alert | 8 min read | 06.30.25

AI Companies Prevail in Path-Breaking Decisions on Fair Use

Last week, artificial intelligence companies won two significant copyright infringement lawsuits brought by copyright holders, marking an important milestone in the development of the law around AI. These decisions – Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta (decided on June 23 and 25, 2025, respectively), along with a February 2025 decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence – suggest that AI companies have plausible defenses to the intellectual property claims that have dogged them since generative AI technologies became widely available several years ago. Whether AI companies can, in all cases, successfully assert that their use of copyrighted content is “fair” will depend on their circumstances and further development of the law by the courts and Congress....