AP and AHN Media Settle IP Litigation

NEW YORK - The Associated Press and AHN Media have settled the AP’s Intellectual Property (IP) lawsuit against AHN Media and individual defendants, a press release by AP stated.

The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York in January 2008. It sought unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against misappropriation of AP's proprietary news reports and against infringement of AP’s copyrights and trademarks.

In its lawsuit, AP alleged that AHN instructed its staff and contractors, both in the United States and in offshore locations, to source news content of general interest from AP stories upon their publication on established news websites.

The suit also alleged that AHN instructed its staff to rewrite the AP stories and to submit the rewritten text to AHN’s computers without AP’s name and copyright management information.

AP further alleged that AHN then added its own byline to the rewritten version of the AP stories and that AHN then reproduced, distributed, publicly displayed and published the rewritten version of the AP stories in competition with AP’s news services. AHN denied the substantive allegations in the AP’s complaint.

As a result of the lawsuit, and as part of the settlement, the defendants agreed that they would not make competitive use of content or expression from AP stories. Defendants acknowledge there were many instances in which AHN improperly used AP’s content without AP’s consent.

The settlement includes payment by AHN to AP of an unspecified sum to settle the AP’s claim for past unauthorized use of AP expression and news content.