• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

The Anthropic legal team has plenty on its hands, from the content scraping lawsuit filed against Anthropic by Chicken Soup for the Soul in May to its skirmish with the Department of War. But here is a new concern: The company has filed a copyright suit against Abnormal AI, Inc.

“This case arises from Abnormal’s efforts to rebrand itself around Anthropic’s distinctive commercial identity while competing in the same market for AI-powered enterprise security where Anthropic has already built substantial goodwill under its marks,” states the complaint filed on July 1. 

The suit contends that "Abnormal’s core business is AI-powered enterprise cybersecurity software, including cloud email security, account takeover protection, messaging security, SaaS security, and related computer security services.”

It adds that  “Abnormal has released features and published research centered on those tools, including a capability designed to detect whether an email was generated using commercial generative artificial intelligence, and a survey report framing enterprise risk in terms of named, commercially available generative artificial intelligence models. Abnormal has also presented its artificial-intelligence-and-cybersecurity positioning at industry events alongside leading AI companies and Anthropic competitors including OpenAI."  

Surely, a company is within its right to compete in the same market, and Anthropic acknowledges as much. What bothers Anthropic is Abnormal’s logo, the “center piece of Abnormal’s new identity.” 

“Prior to the April 2025 rebrand, Abnormal’s logo consisted solely of a letterform with no additional design elements. The new logo adds a line arranged parallel to the rightmost slanting side of the letter form in Abnormal’s original logo.”

The complaint continues that “This additional element in the Infringing Logo is not merely an insignificant alteration; it is the defining feature that creates confusing similarity with Anthropic’s Anthropic Marks, and its introduction fundamentally changes the commercial impression of the mark."

Abnormal had not filed an answer at deadline. 

Anthropic seeks an order barring Abnormal from using “the infringing marks.” It also demands damages, including “corrective advertising damages in an amount to remedy the likelihood of confusion and deception caused by Abnormal’s infringement.”

The case is on file with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.