Month: September 2024

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047).
In late August, SB 1047 arrived on Gov. Newsom’s desk, poised to become the strictest legal framework around AI in the US, with a deadline to either sign or veto it as of September 30th.
It would have applied to covered AI companies doing business in California with a model that costs over $100 million to train or over $10 million to fine-tune, adding requirements that developers implement safeguards like a “kill switch” and lay out protocols for testing to reduce the chance of disastrous events like a cyberattack or a pandemic. The text also establishes protections for whistleblowers to report violations and enables the AG to sue for damages caused by safety incidents.

Changes since its introduction included removing proposals for a new regulatory agency and giving the state attorney general power to sue developers for potential incidents before they occur. Most companies covered by the law pushed back against the legislation, though some muted their criticism after those amendments.
In a letter to bill author Senator Scott Wiener, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon said SB 1047 would slow progress and that the federal government should handle AI regulation instead. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote to the governor after the bill was amended, listing his perceived pros and cons and saying, “…the new SB 1047 is substantially improved, to the point where we believe its benefits likely outweigh its costs.”
The Chamber of Progress, a coalition that represents Amazon, Meta, and Google, similarly warned the law would “hamstring innovation.”
The bill’s opponents have included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and eight congressional Democrats from California. On the other side, vocal supporters have included Elon Musk, prominent Hollywood names like Mark Hamill, Alyssa Milano, Shonda Rhimes, and J.J. Abrams, and unions including SAG-AFTRA and SEIU.
The federal government is also looking into ways it could regulate AI. In May, the Senate proposed a $32 billion roadmap that goes over several areas lawmakers should look into, including the impact of AI on elections, national security, copyrighted content, and more.
Developing…

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047).

In late August, SB 1047 arrived on Gov. Newsom’s desk, poised to become the strictest legal framework around AI in the US, with a deadline to either sign or veto it as of September 30th.

It would have applied to covered AI companies doing business in California with a model that costs over $100 million to train or over $10 million to fine-tune, adding requirements that developers implement safeguards like a “kill switch” and lay out protocols for testing to reduce the chance of disastrous events like a cyberattack or a pandemic. The text also establishes protections for whistleblowers to report violations and enables the AG to sue for damages caused by safety incidents.

Changes since its introduction included removing proposals for a new regulatory agency and giving the state attorney general power to sue developers for potential incidents before they occur. Most companies covered by the law pushed back against the legislation, though some muted their criticism after those amendments.

In a letter to bill author Senator Scott Wiener, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon said SB 1047 would slow progress and that the federal government should handle AI regulation instead. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote to the governor after the bill was amended, listing his perceived pros and cons and saying, “…the new SB 1047 is substantially improved, to the point where we believe its benefits likely outweigh its costs.”

The Chamber of Progress, a coalition that represents Amazon, Meta, and Google, similarly warned the law would “hamstring innovation.”

The bill’s opponents have included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and eight congressional Democrats from California. On the other side, vocal supporters have included Elon Musk, prominent Hollywood names like Mark Hamill, Alyssa Milano, Shonda Rhimes, and J.J. Abrams, and unions including SAG-AFTRA and SEIU.

The federal government is also looking into ways it could regulate AI. In May, the Senate proposed a $32 billion roadmap that goes over several areas lawmakers should look into, including the impact of AI on elections, national security, copyrighted content, and more.

Developing…

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Photo: John Carl D’Annibale / Albany Times Union via Getty Images

You know how Marvel and DC have held joint ownership over trademarks for “Super Hero” for decades? That time is apparently mostly over, as the US Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the companies’ claim to several of their trademarks, reports Reuters.
The cancellation comes as the result of a challenge from Superbabies Limited, a small company that produces a series of Superbabies comics about, well, superhero babies. Superbabies creator S.J. Richold decided to challenge the two comic giants’ claim to the trademarks after DC “attempted to block Richold’s efforts to promote The Super Babies,” wrote the law firm that represented Richold in a release.

Marvel and DC didn’t respond to the challenge by a July 24th, 2024 due date, resulting in the marks’ cancellation, according to the USPTO’s decision. As such, the office canceled four patents, the oldest of which USPTO records show was for the trademark “SUPER HERO,” registered in 1967. The two companies still co-own a “SUPER HEROES” trademark, registered in 2018, as well as a “SUPER-VILLAIN” trademark that they secured in 1985.
If you want to dive down a rabbit hole on the subject of Marvel and DC’s super hero-related trademarks, I’ve got just the thing. One of the lawyers involved in the Superbabies trademark challenge, Adam Adler, actually wrote up a two-part series of articles for Escapist Magazine lightly explaining how the companies came to jointly own the trademarks and what they’ve done to guard that ownership over the years. Adler links out to other articles with even deeper dives, too.

Photo: John Carl D’Annibale / Albany Times Union via Getty Images

You know how Marvel and DC have held joint ownership over trademarks for “Super Hero” for decades? That time is apparently mostly over, as the US Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the companies’ claim to several of their trademarks, reports Reuters.

The cancellation comes as the result of a challenge from Superbabies Limited, a small company that produces a series of Superbabies comics about, well, superhero babies. Superbabies creator S.J. Richold decided to challenge the two comic giants’ claim to the trademarks after DC “attempted to block Richold’s efforts to promote The Super Babies,” wrote the law firm that represented Richold in a release.

Marvel and DC didn’t respond to the challenge by a July 24th, 2024 due date, resulting in the marks’ cancellation, according to the USPTO’s decision. As such, the office canceled four patents, the oldest of which USPTO records show was for the trademark “SUPER HERO,” registered in 1967. The two companies still co-own a “SUPER HEROES” trademark, registered in 2018, as well as a “SUPER-VILLAIN” trademark that they secured in 1985.

If you want to dive down a rabbit hole on the subject of Marvel and DC’s super hero-related trademarks, I’ve got just the thing. One of the lawyers involved in the Superbabies trademark challenge, Adam Adler, actually wrote up a two-part series of articles for Escapist Magazine lightly explaining how the companies came to jointly own the trademarks and what they’ve done to guard that ownership over the years. Adler links out to other articles with even deeper dives, too.

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