Page 14 - Kattison Avenue - Fall 2025 - Issue 15

News to Know

Chris Cole Weighs in on Legal Hurdles Getty Images v. Stability AI: Intellectual
Facing Competitor's Challenge to Purina’s Property Rights in the Age of Generative AI
Bird Flu Claims
This article by Intellectual Property Partner Nathan
Intellectual Property Partner and Advertising and Brand Smith and Associate Anita Hodea discusses the English
Litigation Co-Chair Chris Cole was quoted in a Law. High Court’s long-awaited judgment in Getty Images v.
com article about a case brought by Kalmbach Feeds Stability AI. The case relates to the alleged infringement of
(Kalmbach) against Purina Animal Nutrition (Purina), intellectual property (IP) rights, in photos owned by Getty
challenging Purina's claim that its poultry feed offers a Images, Inc. (Getty), by Stability AI (Stability) in the training
“built-in defense against avian influenza.” Kalmbach, a and use of its deep learning AI model, “Stable Diffusion.”
much smaller competitor of Purina's, is arguing that there It has been very closely followed across the legal, creative
is no scientific proof that food additives can prevent bird and AI sectors alike, with the decision widely expected to
flu and accusing Purina of false advertising under the shed light on how UK IP law applies to the rapidly evolving
Lanham Act and a corresponding state law. field of generative AI.
The lawsuit seeks to halt Purina’s advertising and recover Key takeaways include that Getty succeeded only in
damages, though history suggests that Kalmbach faces part, and narrowly, on its trademark infringement claims;
significant challenges since “Lanham Act cases are expen- its secondary copyright infringement claim failed. The
sive and hard fought,” Chris said. He added that he thinks judgment leaves critical questions unanswered relating
Kalmbach will need strong evidence to prove false adver- to the relationship between IP rights and generative AI,
tising. Chris “highly doubts” that a company with Purina’s particularly whether the use of copyright-protected works
reputation would neglect to run scientific tests that back to train AI models constitutes copyright infringement.
its claims and run its ad campaign by legal counsel. Read the article.
Read the article.

14 Kattison Avenue | Fall 2025