Brackets are set. Bets are placed. As the biggest college basketball game of the year tips off this weekend, fans across the country will be wagering on the outcome of the FINAL FOUR® after the NCAA lost an initial bid to block DraftKings from using its trademarks in connection with the famed MARCH MADNESS

Seyfarth’s 2026 Commercial Litigation Outlook reinforces a key reality for IP practitioners: artificial intelligence is not just driving innovation—it is fundamentally reshaping how intellectual property is created, protected, and challenged. This year, Seyfarth’s Intellectual Property team contributed insights focused on the growing risks to trade secrets, ownership rights, and proprietary information in an AI-driven environment.

Patent attorneys spend a lot of time explaining two deceptively simple concepts: novelty and obviousness. Both rise and fall on one thing: prior art. Most inventors assume prior art means a patent or some obscure technical paper written by someone surviving on cold brew and conference coffee.

That assumption is wrong.

Prior art is anything

On February 20, 2026, Gadgets, Gigabytes and Goodwill Blog co-editor Owen Wolfe spoke at the Fordham School of Law as part of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal Symposium, The Meaning of Ownership: Rethinking Intellectual Property, Creativity, and Control in the Age of Innovation. Owen discussed how courts have so far applied

Introduction

A collision is on the horizon. The collision is between a strict interpretation of the human authorship requirement under U.S. copyright law, and the ascendence of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) as an essential element of modern creativity. From publishing and advertising to music, film, media, and software development, AI systems are reshaping workflows

Co-Author: Samiksha Johri LLM, Associate at Graves Law Group, LLC

With countless parties offering streaming based services, the boundaries between legal and illegal content distribution have become increasingly blurred. One case that brought this issue into focus is United States v. Dallmann et al. 2:22-cr-00030 (D. Nev.), better known as the “Jetflicks” case. This case

Starting January 1, 2026, California’s AI Transparency Act (SB 942) goes into effect, marking the first law in the U.S. to require built-in disclosures and detection tools for generative AI content. Do not panic (yet). This law does not apply to every system out there. In fact, many companies may be surprised to find they’re

A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, voice acting was the exclusive domain of talented humans. But today, in the age of generative AI, even the iconic voice of a legendary villain can be conjured without a single vocal cord, raising major legal questions about name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights

We’re knee-deep in Hoops Havoc (because, yes, March Madness is trademarked), and according to ESPN, there are no perfect brackets entering into the round of sixteen. With my beloved UCLA Bruins making a heart-breaking second-round exit (we’ll get them next year, says the fan who’s been saying that since 1996), I suddenly found myself with