Blockchain Legal Resource

A recent federal court decision determined that documents created by a criminal defendant using AI and subsequently shared with legal counsel were not shielded by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. In USA v. Heppner, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York compelled the disclosure of 31 documents created with Anthropic’s Claude. This order was issued despite the defendant including information from counsel in the AI tool’s input and later providing the resulting outputs to his attorneys. The ruling offers early judicial perspective on privilege concerns involving AI-generated materials, an area where case law remains sparse.

On July 23, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued three key Executive Orders (the AI Executive Orders) simultaneously with the release of Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan (AI Action Plan). Building on earlier executive actions, the AI Action Plan sets forth three pillars that outline the Administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) industrial policy: (1) accelerate innovation; (2) build American AI infrastructure; and (3) lead in international AI diplomacy and security.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in the workplace has spread rapidly since President Trump left the White House in early 2021.  In recent years, retail employers have started using AI technology in a variety of ways from automating tasks, to implementing data-driven decision making, to enhancing customer experience.  Though the Biden administration started to grapple with the use of AI in the workplace, the second Trump administration could mark a dramatic shift in the federal government’s response to these issues.

In February 2024, we posted about the USPTO’s Inventorship Guidance for AI-assisted Inventions and how that guidance might affect a retailer in New USPTO AI-Assisted Invention Guidance Will Affect Retailers and Consumer Goods Companies. With a year now having passed, it is likely you have questions about the guidance.