As generative AI tools become increasingly accessible, sophisticated, and integrated into day-to-day business operations, considerations around intellectual property rights are becoming increasingly important and complex.
An Insurance Business article discussing the threat of AI on intellectual property has referenced a Torys publication to illustrate how IP-related claims are giving rise to class actions across Canada and the United States. This includes the unlicensed use of copyrighted material to train AI systems, the article explains.
Torys lawyers discuss this development in more depth in another publication, "The growing intersection of AI and class action litigation." In the U.S. for example, there has been a surge in class actions alleging that companies improperly obtained individuals' biometric identifiers through AI-based machine-learning systems.
This trend is also emerging in Québec. In 2024, a class action was brought forward against a company accused of "scraping" images of unsuspecting individuals from various online sources, then converted into facial prints based on biometric data extracted from the images. The information was then sold to third-party customers.
These developments signal a future in which AI and IP litigation will intersect, shaping the legal landscape in both Canada and the U.S.
You can read more about our Intellectual Property Litigation work and Artificial Intelligence work on our practice pages.
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