July 21 (Reuters) – The research arm of the University of Tennessee has sued artificial-intelligence giant Anthropic in Delaware federal court for allegedly infringing its patents related to neural networks.
The University of Tennessee Research Foundation’s complaint, filed on Monday and made public on Tuesday, said that Anthropic’s AI systems violate its patents on machine-learning technology inspired by neuroscience.
The lawsuit is thought to be the first patent infringement case against Anthropic. A California federal judge on Monday approved the company’s landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors over its use of their work to train AI.
“Anthropic’s cavalier approach to others’ intellectual property rights in the development of its products extends beyond the use of copyrighted material,” the university said in its complaint.
Spokespeople for Anthropic and the university did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
The Knoxville, Tennessee, school argued that Anthropic’s systems infringe two patents covering “significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, neuromorphic computing, and neuroscience-inspired computing” invented by its professors.
The school asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and an order blocking Anthropic from infringing its patents.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)
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