ROSS Intelligence: Legal Search and the Westlaw Appeal

A search tool, not a generative answer model

ROSS Intelligence built a legal research system that retrieved existing judicial opinions in response to questions. The appellate court expressly distinguishes that non-generative product from systems that generate new expression. Its use of Westlaw headnotes as training material put the tool in a copyright dispute with Thomson Reuters businesses. [3]

The founders announced in December 2020 that the platform would become unavailable on January 31, 2021. They attributed the financing problem to litigation costs and said the company would continue as a going concern for the lawsuit. The service’s closure therefore does not establish that the legal entity dissolved in 2021. [1]

The district court’s February 2025 ruling granted partial summary judgment over copyrighted headnotes, including rejecting ROSS’s fair-use defense. It did not make the text of judicial opinions proprietary. [2]

The Third Circuit’s September 2026 opinion affirmed the relevant copyrightability and fair-use ruling on an interlocutory appeal involving 2,243 headnotes. The limited product, works and procedural posture matter when comparing it with later generative-AI cases. [3]