The rule requires that lenders collect and report extensive applicant data to the CFPB, intended to deter discrimination and promote economic growth.

By Parag Patel, Victor Razon, and Deric Behar

On March 30, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a regulation implementing Section 1071 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The regulation requires lenders, including fintech lenders, to collect and report certain demographic and financial data to the CFPB for credit applications received from small businesses. The purpose of the regulation is to promote economic development, increase transparency and accountability, and address unlawful discrimination in small business lending. The CFPB intends to establish a comprehensive and publicly accessible database containing the small business credit application data collected in connection with this regulation.

In a major Web3 trademark infringement case, NFT creators prevail over those with a bad-faith intent to profit.

By Stephen P. Wink, Tiffany M. Ikeda, Adam Zuckerman, and Deric Behar

On April 21, 2023, Yuga Labs, the original creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token (NFT) collection, successfully moved for summary judgment on two of its key claims arising under the Lanham Act against Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen (collectively, the Defendants). The US District Court for the Central District of California (the Court) considered Yuga’s motions to determine that NFTs are goods for purposes of the Lanham Act of 1946 and that the Defendants had violated the Lanham Act through false designation of origin and cybersquatting.

The government has announced it will come up with a new code of practice to replace an earlier approach that faced opposition from the creative sectors.

By Deborah Kirk and Brett Shandler

Latham previously reported on the UK government’s proposal to introduce a new copyright and database exception that allows text and data mining (TDM) for any purpose, provided that the party employing TDM obtains lawful access to the material (June 2022 TDM Proposal). The UK government has now announced that it is abandoning this proposal, and intends to consult with AI firms and rightholders to produce a code of practice to support AI firms to access copyrighted work as an input to their models, whilst ensuring protections on generated output to support rightholders. It has foreshadowed that this code of practice, due by summer 2023, may be followed up with legislation if it is not adopted or agreement is not reached.

Whereas the original proposal did not directly discuss digital assets, the reopening release is mainly focused on digital asset platforms.

By Stephen P. Wink, Marlon Q. Paz, Naim Culhaci, and Deric Behar

On April 14, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a release amending portions of its earlier proposal to reinterpret the definition of an “exchange” and reopening the comment period for the proposed amendments (the Reopening Release.)

The SEC had issued a set of proposed amendments (the Original Proposal) on January 26, 2022, regarding the regulation of alternative trading systems (ATSs). The Original Proposal would amend Rule 3b-16 (Rule 3b-16) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) to more expansively interpret certain terms used in the statutory definition of an “exchange” under Section 3(a)(1) of the Exchange Act. This reinterpretation would, among other things, cause the “exchange” definition to capture “Communication Protocol Systems”, which are not captured under the present version of Rule 3b-16. (See this Latham post for more information.)