In the 2019-2020 term, the Supreme Court issued two copyright opinions that seemed, at the time (at least to me), to be of little practical significance for the average IP lawyer. The first, Allen v. Cooper, 140 S. Ct. 994 (2020), addressed the burning question of whether and when a state could escape copyright liability under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. (See this post.) The second, Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 140 S.Ct. 1498 (2020), concerned whether the state of Georgia's annotated statutes were copyrightable under the government edicts doctrine. (See this post.) Two years later, my original assessment stands: these decisions are what a DJ would call "deep cuts" in the copyright catalog - interesting and thought-provoking, but unlikely to appear in regular rotation on most lawyers' copyright playlist. Yet, when two lower courts recently applied these SCOTUS precedents in decisions issued within days of each other, I couldn't resist geeking out. So ... last week, I blogged about a case that grappled with the question of sovereign immunity and the impact of Allen v. Cooper. (See this post.) And today, I write about a case that touches upon Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. in an international context.
The plaintiff, Canadian Standards Association ("CSA"), is a Canadian not-for-profit corporation that develops voluntary standards and codes for various industries. CSA secured copyright registrations in Canada on various editions of its Canadian Electrical Code, Propane Storage and Handling Code, and Oil and Gas Pipeline Systems Code (all of which are for sale on its website and, one would imagine, are on every electrical engineer's summer reading list). These codes have been incorporated by reference into several regulations and statutes...
