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Crypto Open Patent Alliance v. Wright (1)

Court
High Court
Jurisdiction
UK
Decided
2024-12-06
AI tool
Unknown
Outcome
No formal sanction; fabricated citations disregarded
Monetary penalty
None reported

What was hallucinated

False Quotes: Case Law | Authorities cited by Dr Wright for vulnerable-witness adjustments did not contain the passages he attributed to them; COPA flagged this and the Court did not engage further. || Fabricated: Case Law | Many of Dr Wright’s cited authorities on vulnerable-witness adjustments were likely made-up references (AI “hallucinations”) rather than genuine sources. || Misrepresented: Case Law | Dr Wright misrepresented cited authorities as supporting vulnerable-witness adjustments when most had nothing to do with that topic. || Misrepresented: Exhibits & Submissions | Allegation that the Court did not allow him to write notes during cross‑examination at the Identity Trial; transcript showed he did take notes. || Fabricated: Exhibits & Submissions | Assertion that two bodyguards (allegedly costing up to £50k/day paid by nChain) ensured his safety at the Identity Trial; Court viewed this as likely pure invention.

Details

AI UseDr. Wright, representing himself, submitted numerous case citations in support of an application for remote attendance at an upcoming contempt hearing. COPA demonstrated that most of the authorities cited did not contain the quoted language—or were entirely unrelated. The judge agreed, noting these were likely "AI hallucinations by ChatGPT."Later on, the Court of Appeal declined permission to appeal (finding that "Dr Wright’s grounds of appeal, skeleton argument and summary of skeleton argument themselves contain multiple falsehoods, including reliance upon fictitious authorities such as “Anderson v the Queen [2013] UKPC 2” which appear to be AI-generated hallucinations"). This led the Court to order him to pay costs of 100,000 GBP.

Sanction teardown · High Court, UK · 2024-12-06

Crypto Open Patent Alliance v. Wright (1)

What happened

In High Court, UK, a filing relied on Unknown to help draft legal argument. The court identified the following problems with the citations in that filing:

  • False Quotes (Case Law)
    Authorities cited by Dr Wright for vulnerable-witness adjustments did not contain the passages he attributed to them; COPA flagged this and the Court did not engage further.
  • Fabricated (Case Law)
    Many of Dr Wright’s cited authorities on vulnerable-witness adjustments were likely made-up references (AI “hallucinations”) rather than genuine sources.
  • Misrepresented (Case Law)
    Dr Wright misrepresented cited authorities as supporting vulnerable-witness adjustments when most had nothing to do with that topic.
  • Misrepresented (Exhibits & Submissions)
    Allegation that the Court did not allow him to write notes during cross‑examination at the Identity Trial; transcript showed he did take notes.
  • Fabricated (Exhibits & Submissions)
    Assertion that two bodyguards (allegedly costing up to £50k/day paid by nChain) ensured his safety at the Identity Trial; Court viewed this as likely pure invention.

Which AI tool

Unknown. Note: Charlotin's public database records tool attribution only where a court order, brief, or reporting on the matter states it explicitly; "unidentified" or "implied" means the record indicates AI use but does not name a specific product — we do not guess.

Outcome

No formal sanction; fabricated citations disregarded

Additional detail

AI UseDr. Wright, representing himself, submitted numerous case citations in support of an application for remote attendance at an upcoming contempt hearing. COPA demonstrated that most of the authorities cited did not contain the quoted language—or were entirely unrelated. The judge agreed, noting these were likely "AI hallucinations by ChatGPT."Later on, the Court of Appeal declined permission to appeal (finding that "Dr Wright’s grounds of appeal, skeleton argument and summary of skeleton argument themselves contain multiple falsehoods, including reliance upon fictitious authorities such as “Anderson v the Queen [2013] UKPC 2” which appear to be AI-generated hallucinations"). This led the Court to order him to pay costs of 100,000 GBP.

How Citation Safe would have caught this

Citation Safe runs three deterministic layers before a brief is filed: (1) does the citation exist against CourtListener's database of published opinions, (2) if quoted, does that exact language appear in the source, (3) does the cited case actually support the proposition it is cited for. Fabricated case citations fail Layer 1. Fabricated or misattributed quotations fail Layer 2 even when the underlying case is real. Misrepresented holdings — a real case cited for a proposition it does not support — are the target of Layer 3. None of these checks involve asking another language model whether the citation looks right; they are lookups and text-matches against the actual source, which is why a hallucinated citation has to survive a direct lookup against the authoritative source — not another model's opinion — to earn a VERIFIED stamp; our measured false-verify rate is published live at /quality.

Check a brief before you file it → · See our live false-verify rate

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/301/Crypto_Open_Patent_Alliance_v._Wright_UK_High_Court_December_6_2024.pdf, via Damien Charlotin's public AI Hallucination Cases Database (CC0).

Source: https://www.damiencharlotin.com/documents/301/Crypto_Open_Patent_Alliance_v._Wright_UK_High_Court_December_6_2024.pdf

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