Why behind AI: (Abnormal) AI litigation
Case No. 3:26-cv-6754; Anthropic PBC vs Abnormal AI Inc
2026 continues to be a peculiar year for Anthropic, as lawyers have, for some reason, taken over decision-making in a number of areas. In January the company forced Peter Steinberger to rebrand ClawdBot, then ended up suing the DoD over being designated a supply-chain risk (for trying to impose contractual terms the federal government deemed unreasonable). This did not prevent the company from launching products that compete directly with some of its largest customers, after benefiting from a very close relationship with those same companies (Figma and Cursor).
This new attitude seems to be driven by the surplus of cash the company is collecting, after it transformed within twelve months into essentially the highest-growth story software has ever seen. When you are this newly rich and influential, squashing competition, or just companies and individuals you dislike, through litigation becomes an obvious move.
So at first glance, Anthropic's argument is that Abnormal AI, a company focused on email security (and trying to pivot into a slightly broader "detections" category), is somehow winning market share by posing as what, exactly?
Oh, and one member of the cybersecurity community found the new logo funny! Both companies are marketing themselves to cybersecurity audiences, and Anthropic has "forever" been building its reputation in the industry for security use cases.
Ah yes, let's not forget that Constitutional AI was a cybersecurity initiative, not an AI alignment research policy.
While Anthropic tries to point to its long history of security contributions, it does admit that it did not launch a dedicated product until February 2026, years after Abnormal AI was founded and later rebranded.
TIL that the Anthropic slash is fundamental to the adoption of its products and the secret behind its rapid ARR growth, which it always seems very excited to point out.
For some reason Abnormal AI being a customer of Anthropic is being held against them, as is rebranding around AI, which pretty much every other software company has tried to do in the last two years.
So now we get to the actual crux of the issue. Anthropic’s legal team is not pretending that Abnormal AI is somehow stealing revenue from it (at several hundred million dollars of run rate, that would be absurd to imply), but that the company is trying to present a strong association with Anthropic, as if the two were affiliated.
As many are learning the hard way, Anthropic does not want to be associated with its customers.
Anthropic sent the account rep to demand that a customer transition its entire branding, an effort that later included forwarding them a nice letter setting a sixty-day deadline.
Oh, forty-seven reactions on this post, including a CYBER DEFENSE SALES LEADER and a FOUNDER & CEO.
So Trey, a sales rep at SentinelOne, made a snarky comment, which led to Pavin, a sales rep turned founder of what appears to be an unknown cybersecurity software company with several interns in India, agreeing with him.
This was enough to deeply disturb Anthropic’s market positioning, due to its association with, checks notes, its paying customer Abnormal AI.
THERE IS A SUBSTANTIAL LIKELIHOOD THAT CONSUMERS ENCOUNTERING ABNORMAL'S PRODUCTS AND MARKETING MATERIALS WILL ATTRIBUTE THEM TO ANTHROPIC, OR BELIEVE THEM TO BE SPONSORED BY OR AFFILIATED WITH ANTHROPIC, CAUSING IRREPARABLE HARM TO THE GOODWILL ANTHROPIC HAS BUILT IN THE ANTHROPIC SYMBOL IN THE AI AND CYBERSECURITY MARKETS, WHERE BRAND TRUST IS CRITICAL.
I know these documents are mostly the legal reps having fun, but still...
Let’s see what Anthropic is trying to achieve here:
2. For entry of an order and judgment requiring that Abnormal and its officers, agents, servants, employees, owners, and representatives, and all other persons, firms, or corporations in active concert or participation with them, be enjoined during the pendency of this action and permanently thereafter from: (a) using in any manner the Infringing Marks, any other mark incorporating or substantially similar to the Anthropic Marks, or any other mark or name that is confusingly similar to or a colorable imitation of the Anthropic Marks; (b) doing any act or thing calculated or likely to cause confusion or mistake in the minds of the members of the public or prospective customers as to the source of the products or services offered or distributed by Anthropic or Abnormal, or likely to confuse members of the public or prospective customers into believing that there is some connection between Anthropic and Abnormal or any other entity owned by or associated with Abnormal; (c) otherwise competing unfairly with Anthropic in any manner; or (d) assisting, aiding, or abetting any other person or business entity in engaging in or performing any of the activities referred to in parts (a) through (c) of this paragraph;
3. For entry of an order and judgment directing Abnormal, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1116(a), to file with this Court and serve upon Anthropic within thirty (30) days after entry of the injunction a report in writing under oath setting forth in detail the manner and form in which Abnormal has complied with the injunction and ceased all offering of goods and services under the Infringing Marks, as set forth above;
4. For entry of an order and judgment directing Abnormal, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1118, to deliver up for destruction, or to show proof of said destruction or sufficient modification to eliminate the infringing matter, all digital assets, catalogs, articles, signage, products, displays, labels, circulars, letterhead, business cards, promotional items, clothing, literature, or other matter in the possession, custody, or under the control of Abnormal or its agents bearing any of the Infringing Marks, or any other mark that is confusingly similar to the Anthropic Marks;
5. For a judgment awarding corrective advertising damages in an amount sufficient to remedy the likelihood of confusion and deception caused by Abnormal’s infringement;
6. For a judgment in the aggregate amount of (a) Abnormal’s profits, (b) Anthropic’s actual damages (including corrective advertising damages), (c) the costs of this action pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1117, and (d) restitution and/or disgorgement of all revenues, earnings, profits, compensation, and benefits that may have been obtained by Abnormal as a result of its unlawful and/or unfair business acts or practices;
Rebrand within 30 days, burn all your swag, never speak of Anthropic in public again, and pay me an undisclosed penalty sum.
Let’s see Abnormal’s public response, based on the blog post from its CEO:
Anthropic filed a lawsuit against us on July 1st, claiming unfair competition and trademark infringement. This was surprising and disappointing for a few reasons:
They never told us: We’re a very large customer of Anthropic and they still have yet to tell us about the lawsuit. I learned about it from a reporter, not our “partner.”
They do NOT own the trademark: They argue our “/\” logo is confusingly similar to their “A\” yet they don’t have a registered trademark that gives them a monopoly over every AI -adjacent A/ design in cybersecurity.
They say we stole their brand: Our company was started 3 years before Anthropic. The logo we use today was designed in April 2021, just months after Anthropic was founded.
They say we deceived customers: No customer has ever purchased thinking we were Anthropic. Our business is about trust: we help our customers stop deception crimes (phishing, fraud, social engineering).
Their demands are shocking: The lawsuit asks for “disgorgement of all revenues, earnings, profits, compensation, and benefits.”
This doesn’t feel Anthropic: We’re both supposed to be mission-oriented companies to act for the global good.
There is nothing more important to me and Abnormal than trust, integrity, and intellectual honesty. So when there are false claims about our integrity, we must respond.
I know that these things are best resolved in private. Unfortunately, this lawsuit was filed publicly without our knowledge. I need to respond publicly now, since customers, employees, and partners have started asking questions.
Two things stand out. The first is the claim that they were not informed through proper channels (maybe the Anthropic sales rep sending an email was not an appropriate channel after all). The second is that Evan is clearly an Anthropic fan and was taken aback by his company being aggressively targeted.
We did not copy Anthropic’s brand or identity.
I founded Abnormal AI in 2018, three years before Anthropic existed. I registered the domain abnormal.ai and we used it with early customers, employees, and investors.
We hired ALINE in April 2021 to design our slash-based Abnormal brand identity, just months after Anthropic was founded and before Claude existed. The logo on our website today is the same wordmark, pixel-for-pixel, that we have used for ~5 years.
The claim that Abnormal invented its identity in 2025 to copy Anthropic is simply wrong.
To be fair, Anthropic is saying they can revert to the original logo, but they can't have a shortened version using the slash, forever known henceforth as the Anthropic Marks of the beast.
Anthropic has no trademark covering use of “AI” for security.
Trademarks prevent confusion in specific markets. Trademarks are not universal monopolies over letters, slashes, or the idea of “AI.”
For example: An “Acme” bread company does not automatically infringe an “Acme” GPU company’s trademark. The domain and market matter. Public trademark records show Anthropic does not have a registered trademark covering the cybersecurity products Abnormal sells.
Anthropic builds general-purpose AI models. Abnormal builds specialized behavioral AI security products. We do not believe Anthropic has trademark rights that prevent Abnormal from using its own A/ slash based identity for the cybersecurity products we sell.
There seems to be a difference of opinion here, as Anthropic appears to be clearly stating "all your security customers now belong to us."
This is about integrity.
Abnormal was built by inventing, not copying.
We built our own AI models, our own technology architecture, and our own behavioral approach for cybersecurity because the old way was failing customers. That is why the accusation that we copied another company to deceive customers is so personally offensive. It is the opposite of who we are.
I have been a major Anthropic user and advocate:
My personal Anthropic account will spend ~$1M this year (Abnormal will be >$10M).
Abnormal has rolled out Claude to 100% of employees because we want our employees to learn how to work in the AI era.
We’ve published 100+ free videos and resources because we want to educate, inspire, and help other companies become AI-native.
That is what innovators do: they build, teach, share, and push the world forward.
We will not accept a false story. Abnormal was not built by copying or confusion. It was built on trust, innovation, and commitment to ensure that our behaviors are aligned with our values and mission to stop crime.
There was a time in the industry when Evan would have been presenting on stage with Dario as a flagship customer.
This, of course, is not the timeline we are in, so instead Evan will have to spend a lot of money and mental effort trying to keep the company from getting one-shotted by this lawsuit. The time wasted on this would probably have been better spent trying to stay competitive in a very difficult market and maintaining the company’s culture.
The funny thing is that being a $10M-per-year customer used to make you a whale enterprise account at the vast majority of software companies until recently (unless you were a hyperscaler signing hundreds of millions in committed spend).
Things have changed lately, with the frontier labs and a handful of category winners that have a platform play (CrowdStrike, Databricks, Datadog). At Anthropic’s current run rate, its relationship with Abnormal AI is irrelevant in dollar terms. If anyone in sales leadership at Anthropic was paying attention, of course, they would have intervened here and started a more reasonable dialogue at the executive level. Things like this used to be handled differently, pre-singularity.
For startups building on Claude products in cybersecurity: pay attention.