The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision on October 22, 2026, upholding the jury verdict delivered in January 2025 in favor of Apple and director M. Night Shyamalan, as part of a long-standing legal dispute over the intellectual property rights of the series Servant, which airs on the Apple TV+ platform.
Details of the Legal Dispute
The case began in January 2020 when director Francesca Gregorini filed a lawsuit alleging that the first three episodes of the series Servant copied ideas from her 2013 film titled The Truth About Emanuel. Gregorini based her claim on similarities in the plot, as both stories revolve around a grieving mother who treats a doll as a living child, featuring a young caregiver character.
After the case was initially dismissed in 2020, it was revived in 2022 to reach the trial stage, where the jury issued a unanimous verdict in favor of Apple and the show's production team on January 24, 2025.
Why This News Matters
The importance of this decision lies in its confirmation of the standards for evaluating intellectual property infringement in digital content. Gregorini challenged the verdict based on claims of errors in jury instructions and the failure to respond to a legal inquiry from the jurors during deliberations. However, the Court of Appeals found that the instructions were sufficient and that the judge was authorized to accept the unanimous verdict before responding to the jurors' inquiry, effectively closing the door on attempts to challenge this file.
This ruling is considered a significant legal victory for Apple in the context of protecting its original content on its streaming platform, and it puts an end to the legal controversy that lasted for years regarding the series, which starred Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell, Nell Tiger Free, and Rupert Grint.