Legaltech supplier Fastcase, which is owned by Clio, is suing Canadian start-up rival Alexi in a dispute over a licensing agreement, trade secrets and trademarks.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington DC on 26 November, alleges Toronto-based Alexi, an AI-powered legal research and document review specialist, used Fastcase’s online law library to “shortcut the massive investment required to build a comprehensive commercial legal-research platform”.
The dispute arises from a licensing deal Alexi signed with Fastcase in 2021, ahead of Fastcase’s merger with Barcelona-based vLex in 2023 and vLex’s subsequent acquisition for $1bn earlier this year by British Columbia-based Clio.
The lawsuit says that Fastcase’s licensing agreement barred Alexi from publishing or distributing any part of the Fastcase database of case law. It is claimed that, despite the licensing agreement only permitting Alexi to use the Fastcase database for internal use, Alexi used the data to build its own legal data platform to compete with Fastcase.
“Alexi used Fastcase’s proprietary database − acquired under a limited, internal-use license − to shortcut the massive investment required to build a comprehensive commercial legal-research platform,” the lawsuit says.
Fastcase also alleges that Alexi displayed Fastcase-sourced case law to end users and used its trademarks in the interface to improve its credibility and suggest an affiliation that does not exist.
In a statement, Alexi’s CEO, Mark Doble, said that it had always operated within the scope of the agreement with Fastcase and that the lawsuit’s claims against Alexi were completely “baseless”.
A Clio spokesperson said in a statement that the company “takes its contractual obligations and intellectual property very seriously” and that it has processes to ensure its licensed data is used appropriately.
Email your news and story ideas to Nick Huber at [email protected].
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