Six litigation signals from September 1–7: AI training, artist identity, trade secrets, and mifepristone
A decision-ready briefing on six major AI, technology, and pharma disputes, covering their current posture, business exposure, precedent value, and next procedural trigger.
The September 1–7, 2026 window produced three AI disputes, a trade-secret fight over Apple employees recruited by OpenAI, a patent settlement over an achondroplasia treatment, and a pause in the fight over mifepristone access. The cases range from a government brief with no binding force to a settlement that ends several patent proceedings. The table gives the posture first; the entries below explain what each development could change.
Docket at a glance
| Sector | Parties | Docket | Current stage | Recent development | Next milestone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI copyright | The New York Times and other newspapers v. OpenAI and Microsoft | not public | Pending federal copyright litigation | U.S. government filed an advisory brief supporting OpenAI on September 1, 2026. 1 | Court handling of the brief; date not public |
| AI identity rights | Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth, Eduardo Calle and other proposed class members v. Suno Inc. | 1:26-cv-14005 | Proposed class action newly filed in the District of Massachusetts | Complaint filed September 1, 2026. 2 | Response or hearing; date not public |
| AI copyright | The Seattle Times and Newsday v. OpenAI and Microsoft | not public | Newly filed copyright action in the Southern District of New York | Complaint filed September 4, 2026. 3 | Response or hearing; date not public |
| Tech workplace / trade secrets | Apple Inc. v. Chang Liu, OpenAI and others | 5:26-cv-07078 | Pending trade-secret and contract case in the Northern District of California | Apple filed a preliminary-injunction motion on August 3; OpenAI filed a response reported September 1, 2026. 45 | Court action on preliminary injunction; date not public |
| Pharma patent | BioMarin Pharmaceutical v. Ascendis Pharma | not public | Settlement resolving patent and ancillary proceedings | Settlement was reported as announced September 1, 2026; BioMarin’s own release is dated August 30. 67 | Royalty implementation and public dismissal filings; date not public |
| Pharma regulation | Texas and Florida v. FDA | not public | Case paused while FDA conducts a safety review | Judge Reed O’Connor paused the case on September 1, 2026, until December 1 or completion of the FDA review, whichever comes first. 8 | December 1, 2026, or completion of the FDA safety review |
AI
The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft: the government enters the training-data fight
Parties: The New York Times and other newspapers v. OpenAI and Microsoft.
Docket number:
not public.Claims: The newspapers allege that OpenAI and Microsoft used millions of articles without permission to train ChatGPT. The Trump administration argued that AI training generally qualifies as fair use and described large-language-model training as highly transformative. The government’s filing is advisory and carries no binding legal force. 1
Current stage: Pending federal copyright litigation. The New York Times filed the underlying case in 2023, and the government filed its brief in Manhattan federal court on September 1, 2026. 1
Recent development and event date: The government filed its advisory brief on September 1, 2026. The New York Times opposed the government’s position. 1
Business impact: A court that adopts the government’s reasoning could reduce the copyright risk associated with ingesting protected works during model training. The brief itself changes the argument available to the court; it does not resolve licensing obligations, output-related claims, or the newspapers’ case.
Precedent value: The case could help define how transformative-use analysis applies to foundation-model training. The government’s position is advocacy, so the precedent will come from the court’s eventual rulings rather than from the brief.
Next milestone: The court’s handling of the government brief; date not public.
Isbell v. Suno: musicians put identity rights beside copyright
Parties: Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth, Eduardo Calle, and other proposed class members v. Suno Inc.
Docket number:
1:26-cv-14005, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 2Claims: The proposed class action alleges that Suno used musicians’ identities without permission and allowed users to generate songs in the musicians’ styles. The complaint focuses on publicity and identity rights, alongside the broader debate over copyrighted music used to train AI systems. The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages and an order barring further use of their likenesses. Suno says the claims lack merit and says it blocks prompts for specific artists’ names or copyrighted songs. 2
Current stage: Proposed class action filed in federal court.
Recent development and event date: The plaintiffs filed the complaint on September 1, 2026. 2
Business impact: The case puts pressure on music-generation products that accept prompts naming living artists or that imitate a recognizable performer’s identity. A successful claim could affect prompt filtering, model training practices, product design, and licensing negotiations even if the court never reaches the copyright theories raised in other music cases.
Precedent value: The case may clarify how publicity or identity rights apply when an AI product produces a new recording rather than a literal copy of a protected song. The proposed class must still survive the early procedural stages, and the allegations remain untested.
Next milestone: Suno’s response or an initial hearing; date not public.
Seattle Times and Newsday v. OpenAI and Microsoft: a new newspaper case targets scraping and substitution
Parties: The Seattle Times and Newsday v. OpenAI and Microsoft.
Docket number:
not public.Claims: The newspapers allege that OpenAI and Microsoft scraped newspaper websites, including paywalled material, and used the articles in datasets for ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Bing AI features. The complaint alleges that the products can reproduce passages, closely paraphrase articles, and reduce readers’ need to visit newspaper sites or buy subscriptions. The newspapers seek an order requiring destruction of copies, training datasets, or AI models incorporating their works. OpenAI says its models are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use; Microsoft said it recognizes the importance of local journalism and is open to discussions. 3
Current stage: Newly filed action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Recent development and event date: The Seattle Times and Newsday filed the complaint on September 4, 2026. 3
Business impact: The requested destruction remedy reaches beyond damages. If a court grants comparable relief, publishers and model developers would face a direct dispute over whether training data, model weights, or both must be removed after an infringement finding.
Precedent value: The case adds a separate test of the relationship between web scraping, paywalls, model training, and market substitution. The complaint echoes The New York Times’ 2023 case while leaving this court to build its own record.
Next milestone: Defendants’ response or an initial hearing; date not public.
Tech
Apple v. Liu and OpenAI: trade-secret claims follow an AI recruiting fight
Parties: Apple Inc. v. Chang Liu, OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, Tang Yew Tan, and io Products LLC.
Docket number:
5:26-cv-07078, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The docket identifies claims for trade-secret misappropriation and breach of contract under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. 5Claims: Apple alleges that Liu, a former Apple employee who joined OpenAI, misappropriated Apple trade secrets and breached contractual duties. Apple’s August 3 filings sought a preliminary injunction and expedited discovery. OpenAI answered that the lawsuit is baseless, that Tan handled nonconfidential files, and that Apple’s offboarding practices contributed to the dispute. The allegations and OpenAI’s defenses remain untested. 45
Current stage: Pending trade-secret and contract case. Apple has sought expedited discovery and preliminary injunctive relief; the docket lists Edward J. Davila as the assigned judge. 5
Recent development and event date: The Wall Street Journal reported on September 1, 2026, that OpenAI filed a late-night response after Apple submitted a brief alleging that Liu downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic. The docket’s last known filing date is September 4, 2026, and the docket record does not identify a September 1 entry. 45
Business impact: The case puts employee mobility, recruiting, device-development work, and trade-secret controls at the center of a dispute between two major technology companies. A preliminary injunction or later merits ruling could affect how companies restrict access during offboarding and how aggressively they investigate hires who move to a competitor.
Precedent value: The case could clarify how courts apply trade-secret protection and employee contractual duties when technical staff move into a competing AI-device effort. The immediate legal signal will come from the court’s treatment of expedited discovery and preliminary relief, rather than from the parties’ competing public accounts.
Next milestone: Court action on Apple’s preliminary-injunction and expedited-discovery motions; date not public.
Pharma and biotech
BioMarin v. Ascendis: Yuviwel patent fight ends with royalties
Parties: BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. v. Ascendis Pharma A/S.
Docket number:
not public.Claims: BioMarin alleged that Ascendis infringed patents in developing Yuviwel, a treatment for achondroplasia. BioMarin’s official announcement says the agreement resolves patent and ancillary disputes pending globally, including a Section 337 investigation before the U.S. International Trade Commission and litigation in Brazil, Denmark, Germany, South Korea, and the Northern District of California. 67
Current stage: Settlement. BioMarin’s release says Ascendis will pay royalties equal to 20% of net U.S. Yuviwel sales, retroactive to the first commercial sale, and 18% of net sales in the European Union, Brazil, and South Korea through May 2030. The parties will resolve the asserted intellectual-property claims, and BioMarin will dismiss the ITC investigation. 7
Recent development and event date: BioPharma Dive reported the settlement as announced on September 1, 2026. BioMarin’s own release is dated August 30, 2026, so the public record gives two dates for the announcement. 67
Business impact: The settlement gives Ascendis a path to continue selling Yuviwel while converting BioMarin’s patent position into a royalty stream. The geographic rates, retroactive U.S. payment, and May 2030 endpoint give investors and competitors concrete terms for modeling the product’s economics.
Precedent value: The settlement has limited judicial precedent value because the accessible materials disclose negotiated terms rather than a merits ruling. Its commercial signal is stronger: a patent dispute involving a competing rare-disease treatment ended with continued market access and a royalty license.
Next milestone: Implementation of the royalty arrangement and public dismissal filings; date not public.
Texas and Florida v. FDA: mifepristone access challenge pauses for an FDA review
Parties: The states of Texas and Florida v. the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories intervened in the case.
Docket number:
not public.Claims: The states challenge the FDA’s original 2000 approval of mifepristone and later access expansions, including the 2023 rule allowing mail dispensing. GenBioPro and Danco moved to dismiss after intervening, and Judge Reed O’Connor rejected that motion. 8
Current stage: The case is paused while the FDA conducts a safety review.
Recent development and event date: Judge O’Connor paused the case in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 1, 2026, after the states, the FDA, and the Department of Justice agreed to the pause. The order lasts until December 1, 2026, or completion of the FDA’s ongoing safety review, whichever comes first. 8
Business impact: The pause gives manufacturers and distributors a defined period in which the existing access framework remains the operative framework described in the report. The case still exposes approval and distribution decisions to a state-led challenge years after the FDA acted.
Precedent value: The litigation could shape whether states can establish standing to challenge long-standing FDA approval and access decisions, and how a federal court should handle a challenge while the agency conducts a new safety review. The September 1 order resolved timing, not the merits.
Next milestone: December 1, 2026, or completion of the FDA safety review, whichever comes first.
Cases to watch
- The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft: watch how the Manhattan court handles the government’s advisory fair-use brief. The brief may influence the court’s framework, but it does not decide the copyright claims.
- Isbell v. Suno: watch Suno’s first response and any motion addressing the publicity-rights theory or proposed class.
- Seattle Times and Newsday v. OpenAI and Microsoft: watch whether the requested destruction remedy becomes a central early dispute alongside damages and fair use.
- Apple v. Liu and OpenAI: watch the court’s treatment of Apple’s preliminary-injunction and expedited-discovery motions, and any findings about the alleged circuit schematic.
- BioMarin v. Ascendis: watch for dismissal filings and confirmation that the royalty license has taken effect across the named territories.
- Texas and Florida v. FDA: watch the earlier of the FDA safety review’s completion and December 1, 2026, when the pause is scheduled to end.
References
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5Apple Inc. v. Liu, 5:26-cv-07078
courtlistener.com
- 6Teva, Celiac, BioMarin, Ascendis, GSK, Flu, BioNTech, Mifepristone
biopharmadive.com
- 7
- 8
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