Category: 3. Business

A global webinar on nuclear technology and food safety, organized by the IAEA to mark International Food Safety Day, has shone a spotlight on the increasingly important role that nuclear science is playing in shaping safer and more resilient food safety and control systems around the world.

The event, held on 5 June, highlighted how nuclear science is playing an increasingly important role in shaping safer and more resilient food systems globally. It emphasized how the IAEA, through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, is helping countries integrate nuclear and related techniques into their food safety and control systems. IAEA support is provided through its technical cooperation and research coordination projects, which provide capacity building and generate valuable data to enhance the efficiency of food safety programmes around the world.

The webinar brought together 85 participants, including three presenters from regional food safety networks, to showcase examples and engage in discussions about how scientific nuclear knowledge and applications can strengthen food safety systems.

“Food safety is a shared responsibility and there is great need to leverage scientific advancements to protect lives, foster trust and promote sustainable development,” said Rola Bou Khozam, head of the IAEA Food Safety and Control Section at IAEA, in her opening message to the participants.

In the keynote presentation, Christina Vlachou, head of the Food Safety and Control Laboratory, highlighted the role of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre in helping countries enhance their technical skills through knowledge transfer activities. Specifically, the IAEA facilitates the transfer of analytical methods and information on detecting contaminants and chemical residues in foods as well as on combatting food fraud based on nuclear and related techniques.

• First mtu hydrogen CHP units, battery storage systems and fuel cell systems from Rolls-Royce in operation
• Benchmark for sustainable energy supply in logistics centers worldwide

Rolls-Royce and Duisburger Hafen AG have opened a CO₂-neutral and self-sufficient energy system for the new Duisburg Gateway Terminal, located in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial region of Germany. The core components are two mtu combined heat and power units designed for operation with 100 percent hydrogen, which are being used here for the first time worldwide. The system is supplemented by an mtu battery storage system, mtu fuel cell systems and a photovoltaic system integrated via an intelligent energy management system.

The Enerport II flagship project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, is setting new standards for sustainable energy supply in large logistics centers and is considered a model for other ports, infrastructure projects and industrial facilities. Project partners include the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT, Westenergie Netzservice GmbH, Netze Duisburg GmbH, Stadtwerke Duisburg AG, and Stadtwerke Duisburg Energiehandel GmbH.

“The launch of this carbon-neutral energy system at the Duisburg Gateway Terminal is a big step toward a more climate-friendly, resilient energy supply. Together with our partner duisport, we’re showing how scalable technologies from Rolls-Royce can really help transform critical infrastructure – and help make the energy transition happen,” said Dr. Jörg Stratmann, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems.

This has become more apparent following Getty’s withdrawal during the trial’s closing submissions of its primary copyright infringement allegations regarding training and output. This raises the general question of how national copyright laws apply to the training and deployment of AI models around the world.

Getty Images et al. v. Stability AI: background

Getty Images (Getty) filed an action in the UK (and an equivalent in the U.S.) alleging copyright, trademark, and database rights infringement. In the UK action, Getty originally asserted that Stability AI unlawfully copied in the UK millions of images, protected by UK copyright and owned or represented by Getty Images, to train its Stable Diffusion image generator.

It also claimed that there was further unauthorized copying or communication to the public in the UK of a substantial part of its images at the point of use, i.e., in the images output from Stable Diffusion. These claims were, however, withdrawn by Getty on the first day of the trial’s closing submissions.

The importance of where to train AI systems

Stability AI had admitted that at least some Getty images were used to train Stable Diffusion. However, Getty’s difficulty with its training allegation was proving that any infringing act occurred in the UK, i.e., whether Getty’s works were copied in the UK during training such as by downloading them onto hardware in the UK.

Stability AI had argued that no infringing acts took place in the UK in training Stable Diffusion because Stable Diffusion was wholly developed and trained outside of the UK and, as such, there was no infringement of UK copyright in this respect.

As this claim has now been withdrawn, we are unlikely to get a judgment on that issue. Nevertheless, it is of real importance to any company deciding where to develop and deploy its AI models. Copyright protection is territorial, and at a high level, the jurisdiction where any infringing acts take place affects the risks of copyright infringement, in particular which defenses to copyright infringement are available.

Currently, different countries have differing approaches to exempting copyright reproduction for text and data mining (TDM) purposes:

• Japan and Singapore allow TDM for commercial purposes.
• The EU allows copyright owners to opt-out works from commercial TDM.
• The UK currently only allows TDM for non-commercial research. However, as explained in our previous blog post, it is considering introducing an exception for commercial TDM with the ability for rights holders to reserve their rights (an “opt-out”).

The U.S. takes an entirely different approach, deciding on the particular facts of each case whether the use in training could be considered to be “fair.” In one case, the use of legal headnotes to train a competitor’s AI tool was held not to be fair use given the particular use case¹. On the other hand, in a recent federal court judgment in California, AI foundation model developer Anthropic has been allowed to assert fair use against copyright claims for training its Claude AI models on copyrighted books that Anthropic had lawfully acquired².

However, the judge in that case ruled that the same “fair use” argument would not apply in respect of Anthropic’s collection and use of pirated works, which will be the subject of a separate damages hearing (with potentially significant amounts at issue).

Meanwhile, in a separate federal court proceeding in California against Meta, the judge concluded that “fair use” was likely not available given the market dilution impact of large language models (although the judge found in favor of Meta for other reasons)3.

Accordingly, reproducing copyright works during AI training may be exempted in countries with more expansive exceptions, but it will only be possible to fully take advantage of such expansive exemptions if one can restrict all acts of reproduction to that country and nothing is downloaded or stored elsewhere.

Furthermore, these TDM exemptions will only apply (if at all) to the steps of training the AI model. Subsequent acts of reproduction or communication to the public following completion of the AI training may involve new infringing acts that may not be covered by the TDM exceptions. These may include, for example, further reproduction (e.g., uploading protected content) or making any data resulting from TDM activities available to the public (e.g., making it accessible on the internet).

Deployment

Despite the withdrawal of the training claim, Stability AI will not necessarily avoid UK copyright liability. This is because Getty continues with two secondary infringement claims that cover the deployment of Stable Diffusion in the UK:

1. Stable Diffusion is alleged to be an article that is, and that Stability AI knows or has reason to believe, is an infringing copy of Getty’s copyright works, which has been imported into the UK (s23 CDPA ’88).
2. Stability AI is alleged to have possessed and distributed in the course of business, sold, offered, or exposed for sale, an article that is, and that it knows or has reason to believe, is an infringing copy (s33 CDPA ’88).

These allegations raise some interesting legal questions:

Can an intangible AI model like Stable Diffusion that is accessible from the internet ever constitute an “article” capable of being imported or dealt with in the course of business?

Can the AI model itself (like Stable Diffusion) be said to be an infringing copy (i.e., a substantial reproduction) of one or more works that were used to train the model?

What if Stable Diffusion does not retain internally in the model any copies of any of the works on which it was trained in material form?

Is it sufficient that the model weights (the associations and patterns developed through the training process) contain an abstracted representation of all the model’s training data?

The answer to these questions will depend on the court’s interpretation of UK legislation as much as the technology itself. As with all AI-related legal risks, it will be technology-led and the decision in this case may not be relevant to AI models trained using different techniques.

Is an AI model an infringing copy if its making constituted a copyright infringement or would have constituted a copyright infringement if it were made in the UK?

Another fundamental requirement is that Stability AI knew or had reason to believe that Stable Diffusion was an infringing copy. Is it sufficient that it is common knowledge that photographs are protected by copyright, and that copyright in them would be infringed by copying them, or by importation of infringing copies of them? Or did Stability AI hold a reasonable belief that Stable Diffusion was not an infringing copy because none of the model, source code, or output was a substantial reproduction of any copyright work from its training dataset?

Other AI developers need to pay close attention to the court’s ruling on these issues because it should clarify whether AI models trained in other countries will infringe under UK copyright law, and if so, how. The UK government in its recent Consultation on Copyright and AI specifically noted that it wanted to avoid UK-trained AI models from being disadvantaged compared to those trained elsewhere but operating within the UK.

Takeaways

International copyright disputes are never straightforward and those involving global AI operations are no exception. The Getty case has illustrated how important it is for a successful claim to establish an infringing act in the relevant jurisdiction, and this will depend not only on the specific techniques and datasets used to train the model, but also the differing exceptions to copyright infringement around the world.

The crux of the (UK) Getty case is now whether UK copyright law bites on an AI model that was trained elsewhere but made available to UK consumers. Even if most AI training currently occurs in the U.S. or China, the UK remains a valuable commercial market and developers wishing to sell into it need to take note.

This is at the same time, of course, as following the many ongoing proceedings in other markets (particularly the U.S., where much of the AI training takes place) as well as assessing the impact of the EU AI Act, which requires AI developers offering their products in the EU to have complied with EU copyright laws when training their models (even if trained outside the EU). It is a very complex and fast-moving global picture.

Footnotes

1. Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence No. 1:20-cv-613-SB (E.D. Pa. Feb. 11, 2025)—a summary judgment.

2. Andrea Bartz v. Anthropic C 24-05417 WHA

3. Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc. No. 23-cv-03417-VC

Engineering and construction solutions provider McDermott has secured a contract for offshore transportation and installation in Brazil for the Papa-Terra and Atlanta fields.

The contract, awarded by Brazil-based independent oil and gas company BRAVA Energia, involves the transportation and installation of flexible pipelines, umbilical and associated subsea equipment for two new wells at the Papa-Terra field, as well as a pair of new wells for the Atlanta Phase 2 development.

McDermott subsea and floating facilities senior vice-president Mahesh Swaminathan stated: “This award highlights the vital role of subsea infrastructure in enabling long-term production and asset value for deepwater developments.

“We will leverage our proven integrated delivery model, marine capabilities and expertise in delivering brownfield deepwater solutions to support Brazil and the broader South American offshore market.”

The new wells operated by BRAVA Energia at the Papa-Terra and Atlanta fields are anticipated to boost the escalation of production, in line with strategic plans to boost output and extend the lifespan of deepwater infrastructure.

In early 2025, BRAVA Energia finalised a deal with global commodity trader Trafigura for the sale of six million barrels of oil from the Atlanta field.

McDermott’s history with the Papa-Terra field includes the delivery of the tension leg wellhead platform, marking a first for both a dry-tree floating production system offshore Brazil and a tension leg platform in South America.

With operations in more than 54 countries, McDermott employs 30,000 people, operates a fleet of speciality marine construction vessels and maintains fabrication facilities globally.

The company’s commitment to the South American market is further evidenced by its recent completion of the Scarborough floating production unit floatover project for Woodside Energy and an enterprise framework agreement with Shell Global Solutions International for engineering and procurement services.

“McDermott wins offshore installation contract in Brazil” was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.

 

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TEMPE, Ariz., July 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Economic activity in the hospital subsector contracted in June after 21 consecutive months of growth, say the nation’s hospital supply executives in the latest Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^®.

The report was issued today by Nancy LeMaster, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management^® (ISM^®) Hospital Business Survey Committee: “The Hospital PMI^® registered 49 percent in June, a 3-percentage point decrease from the May reading of 52 percent, indicating contraction after 21 consecutive months of growth. The composite index is in contraction territory for just the fifth time (with the PMI^® also registering below 50 percent in April and May 2020, as well as May and August 2023) in more than seven years of Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^® data collection. The Business Activity Index remained in expansion territory for the eighth straight month. The New Orders Index returned to expansion territory from an ‘unchanged’ reading in May, and the Employment Index returned to contraction after two consecutive months of expansion with its lowest reading since January 2022. The Supplier Deliveries Index was ‘unchanged’ in June after two consecutive months of expansion (which indicates slower delivery performance). The Case Mix Index remained in expansion territory in June, registering 50.5 percent, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points from the reading of 53 percent reported in May. The Days Payable Outstanding Index remained in expansion in June, registering 51 percent, down 0.5 percentage point from the 51.5 percent reported in May. The Technology Spend Index reading of 57.5 percent is a decrease of 1.5 percentage points compared to the 59 percent recorded in May. The Touchless Orders Index remained in expansion territory in June, registering 52.5 percent, up 1 percentage point from the reading of 51.5 percent reported in May.”

LeMaster continues, “Half of the general comments by Hospital Business Survey panelists related to concerns and challenges dealing with tariffs and the shifting geopolitical landscape. Panelists were nearly unanimous in indicating their facilities or systems were beginning to see tariff-related surcharges or increased pricing. The largest month-over-month change in this month’s report was the Employment Index, and the 8-percentage point decrease pulled the PMI^® into contraction. Comments indicated the reductions in staffing were related to margin pressures and loss of federal funding; they did not appear to be driven by volume levels. Although the Business Activity Index dropped 3.5 percentage points from the previous month, most comments cited strong or seasonal-level volumes. While inventories growth slowed, increases continued to be driven by efforts to blunt the impact of tariffs and potential shortages. Supplier deliveries continued to improve, and very few panelists commented about product shortages.”

About This Report
The information compiled in this report is for the month of June 2025.

The Hospital PMI^® was developed in collaboration with the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM), an association for the health care supply chain profession, and a professional membership group of the American Hospital Association (AHA).

The data presented herein is obtained from a survey of hospital supply executives based on information they have collected within their respective organizations. ISM^® makes no representation, other than that stated within this release, regarding the individual company data collection procedures. The data should be compared to all other economic data sources when used in decision-making.

Data and Method of Presentation
The Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^® is based on data compiled from hospital purchasing and supply executives nationwide. Survey responses reflect the change, if any, in the current month compared to the previous month. For each of the indicators measured (Business Activity, New Orders, Employment, Supplier Deliveries, Inventories, Prices, Prices: Pharmaceuticals, Prices: Supplies, Backlog of Orders, Imports, Inventory Sentiment, Case Mix, Days Payable Outstanding, Technology Spend, and Touchless Orders), this report shows the percentage reporting each response and the diffusion index. Responses represent raw data and are never changed. Beginning in January 2021, the Report On Business^® staff and consultants are gathering market information to better validate the Exports Index. Exports Index data are still being collected.

The Hospital PMI^® is a composite index computed from the following, equally weighted indexes: Business Activity, New Orders, Employment and Supplier Deliveries. Diffusion indexes have the properties of leading indicators and are convenient summary measures showing the prevailing direction of change and the scope of change. A Hospital PMI^® index reading above 50 percent indicates that the hospital sub-sector is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally declining. For the sub-indexes, except Supplier Deliveries, an index reading above 50 percent indicates that the sub-index is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally contracting. A Supplier Deliveries Index above 50 percent indicates slower deliveries and below 50 percent indicates faster deliveries.

The Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^® survey is sent out to the Hospital Business Survey Panel respondents the first part of each month. Respondents are asked to ONLY report on U.S. operations for the current month. ISM^® receives survey responses throughout most of any given month, with the majority of respondents generally waiting until late in the month to submit responses to give the most accurate picture of current business activity. ISM^® then compiles the report for release on the fifth business day of the following month.

ISM ROB Content
The Institute for Supply Management^® (“ISM”) Report On Business^® (Manufacturing, Services, and Hospital reports) (“ISM ROB”) contains information, text, files, images, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, and any other materials or content (collectively, “Content”) of ISM (“ISM ROB Content”). ISM ROB Content is protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, and other laws, and as between you and ISM, ISM owns and retains all rights in the ISM ROB Content. ISM hereby grants you a limited, revocable, non-sublicensable license to access and display on your individual device the ISM ROB Content (excluding any software code) solely for your personal, non-commercial use. The ISM ROB Content shall also contain Content of users and other ISM licensors. Except as provided herein or as explicitly allowed in writing by ISM, you shall not copy, download, stream, capture, reproduce, duplicate, archive, upload, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute, perform, display, sell, or otherwise use any ISM ROB Content.

Except as explicitly and expressly permitted by ISM, you are strictly prohibited from creating works or materials (including, but not limited to tables, charts, data streams, time-series variables, fonts, icons, link buttons, wallpaper, desktop themes, online postcards, montages, mashups and similar videos, greeting cards, and unlicensed merchandise) that derive from or are based on the ISM ROB Content. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the derivative works or materials are sold, bartered, or given away. You shall not either directly or through the use of any device, software, internet site, web-based service, or other means remove, alter, bypass, avoid, interfere with, or circumvent any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices marked on the Content or any digital rights management mechanism, device, or other content protection or access control measure associated with the Content including geo-filtering mechanisms. Without prior written authorization from ISM, you shall not build a business utilizing the Content, whether or not for profit.

You shall not create, recreate, distribute, incorporate in other work, or advertise an index of any portion of the Content unless you receive prior written authorization from ISM. Requests for permission to reproduce or distribute ISM ROB Content can be made by contacting Rose Marie Goupil in writing at: ISM Research, Institute for Supply Management, 309 W. Elliot Road, Suite 113, Tempe, AZ 85284-1556, or by emailing [email protected]; Subject: Content Request.

ISM shall not have any liability, duty, or obligation for or relating to the ISM ROB Content or other information contained herein, any errors, inaccuracies, omissions or delays in providing any ISM ROB Content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. In no event shall ISM be liable for any special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the ISM ROB. Report On Business^®, PMI^®, Manufacturing PMI^®, Services PMI^®, and Hospital PMI^® are registered trademarks and trademarks of Institute for Supply Management^®. Institute for Supply Management^® and ISM^® are registered trademarks of Institute for Supply Management, Inc.

About Institute for Supply Management^®
Institute for Supply Management^® (ISM^®) is the first and leading not-for-profit professional supply management organization worldwide. Its community of more than 50,000 in more than 100 countries around the world manage about US$1 trillion in corporate and government supply chain procurement annually. Founded in 1915 by practitioners, ISM is committed to advancing the strategy and practice of integrated, end-to-end supply chain management through leading edge data-driven resources, community, and education to empower individuals, create organizational value and to drive competitive advantage. ISM’s vision is to foster a prosperous, sustainable world. ISM empowers and leads the profession through the ISM^® Report On Business^®, its highly regarded certification and training programs, corporate services, events and assessments. The ISM^® Report On Business^®, Manufacturing, Services, and Hospital are three of the most reliable economic indicators available, providing guidance to supply management professionals, economists, analysts, and government and business leaders. For more information, please visit: www.ismworld.org.

The text version of the public Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^® is posted on ISM^®‘s website at www.ismrob.org on the fifth business day* of every month at 10:00 a.m. ET.

The next Hospital ISM^® Report On Business^® featuring July 2025 data will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, August 7, 2025.

*Unless the New York Stock Exchange is closed.

SOURCE Institute for Supply Management