WASHINGTON, DC – In granting a preliminary injunction to Anthropic, U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin relied on the concerns raised by small technology companies in ACT | The App Association’s amicus brief as justification for her decision.

“We are grateful to Judge Lin for addressing the concerns of startups and small AI companies by granting the preliminary injunction” said Morgan Reed, president of ACT | The App Association. “U.S. small businesses are our most innovative and regularly provide breakthrough solutions, both for the government and private sector. This ruling is a critical step towards restoring the certainty that businesses need. Just as when policymakers speak with our members directly, when the courts address our concerns the result is a more positive policy environment.”

Notably Judge Lin cites ACT’s arguments in:

  • Acknowledging the iterative nature of AI tools and the myriad ways they can be utilized throughout the development process on Page 3, “Anthropic’s clients use its products in myriad contexts. For example, a client’s engineers may use their company’s Claude subscription to write, test, and fix code, or a client may integrate a Claude model into its own product via an application programming interface (“API”). (Dkt. No. 73 at 7–8;1 Dkt. No. 6-4 ¶ 6.)”
  • Acknowledging the chilling effect on innovation and the impracticability of enforcing the supply chain risk designation on Page 17, “Small developers describe their uncertainty as to whether they will continue to be able to use Claude Code, or use open source libraries that might contain sections of code written by Claude, without running afoul of the Challenged Actions. (Dkt. No. 73 at 7-8.)”
  • And for acknowledging the harm small AI companies are suffering and would continue to suffer in justifying the ruling on Page 41, “A nonprofit advocacy group for small developers explains that their members are particularly vulnerable to sudden, large changes in government procedures, and the confusion and ambiguity created by the Challenged Actions will impose significant costs on them. (Dkt. No. 73 at 4-5.)”

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About ACT | The App Association:
ACT is a global trade association for small and medium-sized technology companies. Our members are entrepreneurs, innovators, and independent developers within the global app ecosystem that engage with verticals across every industry. We work with our members to promote a policy environment that rewards and inspires innovation while providing resources that help small businesses raise capital, create jobs, and continue to build incredible technology.