Six litigation signals from October 6–12: a quarter-billion-dollar publisher suit against OpenAI, four states against TP-Link, and a cross-border patent injunction
A decision-ready briefing on six AI, technology and pharmaceutical disputes from October 6–12, 2026: USA Today's quarter-billion-dollar copyright suit against OpenAI, four states' consumer-protection actions against TP-Link, a $600 million memory patent settlement, a Dutch cross-border injunction against injectable Keytruda, PhRMA's challenge to Medicare's GLOBE pricing model, and a Third Circuit ruling in the Remodulin contract fight.
The week of October 6–12, 2026 put four state attorneys general on the same side against a router maker, ended a multi-venue memory patent war for $600 million, and drew a quarter-billion-dollar copyright claim against OpenAI. 123
Pharmaceutical litigation moved on three fronts: a Dutch court issued a cross-border injunction against Merck's injectable Keytruda, the industry's main trade group sued over Medicare's new pricing model, and an appellate panel sent a Remodulin contract fight back to trial. 456
Docket at a glance
| Sector | Parties | Docket | Current stage | Recent development | Next milestone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI copyright | USA Today Co. and 19 affiliated publications v. OpenAI | 1:26-cv-08892 (S.D.N.Y.) | Complaint filed October 8, 2026 | The publisher seeks more than $250 million over the training of ChatGPT on hundreds of thousands of its articles, pleading copyright infringement and removal of copyright management information. 1 | OpenAI's response; date not public |
| Tech consumer protection | Florida, Montana, Iowa and Nebraska v. TP-Link Systems, Inc. | Not public (four separate state-court actions) | Filed October 6, 2026 | The states allege TP-Link misled buyers about router security and about its ties to China; Montana seeks an injunction and $10,000 per violation. 7 | TP-Link's responses; dates not public |
| Tech patent | Netlist, Inc. v. Micron Technology, Inc. | Not public | Settled October 6, 2026 | Micron will pay $600 million over five years for a licence to Netlist's memory patents and both sides released all pending proceedings. 3 | Quarterly payments run to the third quarter of 2031; nothing further pending |
| Pharma patent | Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. v. Merck & Co. and MSD | HA ZA 25-1075 (District Court of The Hague) | Injunction issued October 7, 2026 | The court found Merck infringed Halozyme's patent on a drug-delivery enzyme and barred subcutaneous Keytruda in eight European markets. 4 | Merck's appeal; date not public |
| Pharma regulatory | Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Kennedy | 1:26-cv-03498 (D.D.C.) | Complaint filed October 7, 2026 | PhRMA challenges the GLOBE drug-pricing model as beyond the innovation centre's statutory authority. 8 | Briefing on preliminary relief before the rule's November 30, 2026 effective date |
| Pharma antitrust | Sandoz, Inc. and RareGen, LLC v. United Therapeutics Corp. and Smiths Medical ASD, Inc. | 24-3067 (3d Cir.) | Decided October 7, 2026 | The panel sent breach-of-contract liability back to trial, revived a tortious-interference claim, affirmed dismissal of the antitrust claims and vacated a damages judgment. 6 | Liability trial on remand in the District of New Jersey; date not public |
AI
USA Today v. OpenAI: a quarter-billion-dollar claim joins the publisher queue
Parties: USA Today Co. and the local newspapers it owns — 19 publications in all, among them The Tennessean, Indy Star, The Columbus Dispatch and The Oklahoman — against OpenAI. 1
Docket number:
1:26-cv-08892, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 9Claims: Direct and vicarious copyright infringement, plus removal of copyright management information under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 9 The complaint asks for more than $250 million in damages, an injunction, and the destruction of models trained on the works. 9
Current stage: Complaint filed October 8, 2026. No response from OpenAI is on the public record. 1
Recent developments: The complaint alleges OpenAI copied "hundreds of thousands" of articles to train its models without permission, and that ChatGPT reproduces or summarises that reporting in ways that substitute for reading it. 9 Its central allegation is that "OpenAI's commercial success rests on large-scale copyright infringement." 1 The filing itself is public. 10
Business impact: The claim lands in an already crowded queue that includes The New York Times, The Intercept, Ziff Davis, CBC/Radio-Canada, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster, The Seattle Times and a coalition of nearly 400 local newspapers. 1
Precedent value: The suit presses two theories at once — copying at training time and the removal of author credits, publication names and copyright notices from the works used. 9 How far a publisher can reach statutory damages across a whole corpus, and whether the credits theory survives, are the questions this one adds.
Next milestone: OpenAI's answer or a motion to dismiss, and whether the case is coordinated with the other publisher suits already filed in the same district; neither date is public.
Tech
Four states v. TP-Link: router security becomes a consumer-protection case
Parties: The attorneys general of Florida, Montana, Iowa and Nebraska, each suing separately, against TP-Link Systems, Inc., the California-incorporated arm of the router maker. 27
Docket number: Not public; the actions were filed in state courts in each plaintiff state, with Montana's case filed in Lewis and Clark County. 7
Claims: Violations of state consumer-protection statutes. The states allege TP-Link made false claims about the security of its devices, misrepresented how far it has separated from its Chinese affiliate, and failed to disclose how it handles customer data. 27
Current stage: All four suits were filed on October 6, 2026. 2
Recent developments: Montana asks for a permanent injunction and civil penalties of $10,000 per violation under its Consumer Protection Act. 7 Florida's attorney general says his state's action seeks an injunction, restitution and penalties, and called TP-Link's account of a split from China "fiction". 2 TP-Link answered that the "coordinated lawsuits are built on false premises" and that its US-market devices are made in Vietnam by an independent American company. 11
Business impact: The suits arrive under an FCC ban on consumer-grade routers produced wholly or partly outside the United States. 2 Rivals including Netgear, Asus, Amazon and Starlink hold exemptions from that ban; TP-Link does not, so its newest models cannot be sold in the US while the cases run. 2
Precedent value: These are consumer-protection actions, not national-security orders, and they turn on marketing statements a court can test against documents. 7 Four near-identical complaints from different states give the theory a template any state can copy against hardware makers that advertise security. 2
Next milestone: TP-Link's responses in the four actions, and whether it obtains an exemption from the router ban; dates not public. 2
Netlist v. Micron: $600 million buys a licence and removes an import threat
Parties: Netlist, Inc., a memory-patent licensor, and Micron Technology, Inc. 3
Docket number: Not public; the dispute ran across a Texas district court action and an International Trade Commission investigation, and the settlement announcement names no docket. 12
Claims: Patent infringement. A Texas jury found in May 2024 that Micron's memory modules infringed two Netlist patents, awarding $425 million on one and $20 million on the other. 12
Current stage: Settled. The two companies announced patent licence and settlement agreements on October 6, 2026. 313
Recent developments: Micron will pay $30 million a quarter from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the third quarter of 2031 — $600 million in total — for a five-year licence to Netlist's worldwide portfolio, including patents covering server DIMMs and high-bandwidth memory. 3 The agreed sum exceeds the $445 million verdict, which Micron had not paid and was still appealing. 12 It also disposes of Netlist's September request that the commission block imports of Micron chips used in AI systems. 12
Business impact: For Micron the quarterly payment is small against its scale, but the licence covers a portfolio an appeal could not have reached. 12 Netlist now collects from two memory makers: it struck a similar deal with Samsung in August 2026, with $239 million upfront and quarterly fees of up to $32.9 million. 12
Precedent value: The agreement shows a defendant paying more than the judgment against it to buy the whole portfolio's reach and to clear an import threat, because an import ban stops products reaching customers while damages only cost money. 12 For makers of high-bandwidth memory, it also identifies where the licensing pressure sits. 3
Next milestone: No further proceedings between the parties are pending; quarterly payments run through the third quarter of 2031. 3
Pharma
Halozyme v. Merck: a Dutch injunction reaches eight European markets
Docket number:
HA ZA 25-1075, the specialized patent chamber of the District Court of The Hague. 15Claims: Patent infringement of European Patent 2,797,622, one of Halozyme's MDASE patents, which cover an enzyme used to let drugs be delivered by injection rather than infusion. 414
Current stage: Decided at first instance on October 7, 2026. 4
Recent developments: The court ordered MSD — Merck's central European marketing authorisation holder and its worldwide packaging and distribution hub — to stop manufacturing, offering, marketing, using, importing or stocking subcutaneous Keytruda in Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands. 14 Merck said it strongly disagrees with the ruling, and patients retain access to the intravenous version, which the order does not touch. 4
Business impact: The order blocks the injectable form of Merck's best-selling cancer drug across the markets where MSD distributes it centrally, and leaves the company's subcutaneous strategy exposed in Europe while it litigates. 14
Precedent value: The injunction is cross-border: one national court's finding reaches eight markets, which is the feature that makes the Netherlands a preferred forum for pan-European patent relief. 14 It also shows a delivery-technology patent stopping a formulation strategy even though the drug compound itself is not in dispute. 4
Next milestone: Merck's appeal against the Dutch ruling; date not public.
PhRMA v. Kennedy: the Medicare pricing pilot goes to court
Parties: The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services, Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Abe Sutton and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. 8
Docket number:
1:26-cv-03498, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth. 8Claims: Two counts under the Administrative Procedure Act and two constitutional claims. 8 PhRMA argues the pricing model exceeds the innovation centre's authority, violates the major questions doctrine and imports foreign pricing based on quality-adjusted life years, which it says a Social Security Act provision forbids; it adds presentment-clause and nondelegation claims. 16
Current stage: Complaint filed October 7, 2026. Briefing is ongoing. 8 The complaint itself is public. 17
Recent developments: CMS published the GLOBE final rule on October 2, 2026. It ties Medicare Part B rebates for certain high-spend drugs to prices in 19 other countries, takes effect on November 30, 2026, and opens a five-year test period in April 2027. 16 PhRMA asks the court to set the rule aside, postpone its effective date and enjoin it, including through a temporary restraining order. 16
Business impact: Manufacturers of covered drugs must participate, and CMS says it can impose civil penalties of 125 percent of an unpaid incremental rebate. 16 The pilot is expected to have limited reach, however, because the administration exempted all but a handful of companies in exchange for voluntary commitments to charge Medicaid most-favoured-nation prices. 5
Precedent value: This is the second round of most-favoured-nation litigation. The 2020 interim final rule was blocked in three districts and rescinded in December 2021; unlike that challenge, PhRMA now attacks whether the agency has substantive authority to adopt such a model at all. 16 A ruling would define how far the innovation centre's model-testing authority reaches without Congress.
Next milestone: A decision on preliminary relief, which may come quickly because the rule takes effect on November 30, 2026; no date is public. 16
Sandoz v. United Therapeutics: an ambiguous settlement sends liability back to trial
Parties: Sandoz, Inc. and RareGen, LLC (now Liquidia PAH, LLC) against United Therapeutics Corp. and Smiths Medical ASD, Inc. 6
Docket number: Nos.
24-3067, 24-3116 and 24-3146, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, on appeal from No. 2:19-cv-10170 in the District of New Jersey. The panel was Judges Restrepo, McKee and Ambro, and it heard argument on November 12, 2025. 6Claims: Breach of a 2015 patent settlement agreement, tortious interference, and federal antitrust and state unfair-trade-practices claims over the market for injectable treprostinil, which United Therapeutics sells as Remodulin. 6
Current stage: Decided October 7, 2026. 6
Recent developments: The court reversed summary judgment for Sandoz on breach-of-contract liability, holding that the settlement agreement does not unambiguously support Sandoz's reading, and sent liability to trial. 6 It separately reversed summary judgment for United Therapeutics on the tortious-interference claim and told the district court to analyse that claim apart from the antitrust claims. 6 It affirmed the dismissal of the Sherman Act claims and a North Carolina unfair-trade-practices claim, finding United Therapeutics showed procompetitive justifications for its conduct, and it upheld the denial of United Therapeutics' challenge to the plaintiffs' damages expert. 6 The decision vacates a November 1, 2024 judgment and the damages award against United Therapeutics, which Bloomberg Law reports at $70.6 million. 618
Business impact: The ruling removes the money judgment against United Therapeutics but reopens trial on whether the company breached its promise not to restrict the launch of generic treprostinil. 6 Because the antitrust claims are gone rather than revived, the remaining exposure runs through contract liability and damages.
Precedent value: The opinion keeps two questions apart — whether a settlement agreement bound the brand manufacturer's conduct, and whether that conduct was anticompetitive — and it credits procompetitive justifications for limiting a rival's access to a delivery device. 6
Next milestone: The liability trial on remand in the District of New Jersey; date not public. 6
Cases to watch
- USA Today v. OpenAI: OpenAI's first response, and whether the suit is coordinated with the other publisher actions in the Southern District of New York. 9
- TP-Link: whether the FCC grants the exemption that would let new TP-Link models reach the US market, and how the four state actions are answered. 2
- PhRMA v. Kennedy: a ruling on preliminary relief ahead of the rule's November 30, 2026 effective date. 16
- Sandoz v. United Therapeutics: the liability trial on remand in New Jersey, and how the district court separates the tortious-interference claim from the antitrust record. 6
- Halozyme v. Merck: Merck's appeal of the Dutch injunction and any further European proceedings over the MDASE patent. 14
- Qualcomm v. Arm: a five-day jury trial opened in Delaware on October 5 over whether Arm breached a licence by withholding chip-testing tools; the verdict is the next event, with no date public. The remedy Qualcomm seeks — relief from royalties for up to five years — is worth billions. 19
References
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- 8Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Kennedy et al.
litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu
- 9USA Today Co. v. OpenAI (1:26-cv-08892)
ailawsuittracker.com
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- 12Micron Is Paying $600 Million to Settle a $445 Million Verdict
finance.yahoo.com
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- 17Complaint, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Kennedy, No. 1:26-cv-03498 (D.D.C. filed Oct. 7, 2026)
litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu
- 18United Therapeutics Wipes Sandoz $70.6 Million Remodulin Award
news.bloomberglaw.com
- 19
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