The most recent case on the issue was Georgia v. Pro in 2020, which further upheld the lack of copyright for SDOs. This is supported by a wide variety of other precedents.

Kevin J. Hickey, “Copyright in Standards Incorporated by Reference into Law and the Pro Codes Act,” Congressional Research Service, 09-26-2023, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47656.pdf

Applying its rule, the majority in Georgia v. PRO found that because Lexis made the annotations under an agreement with an “arm” of the Georgia state legislature, the annotations were authored by the legislature in the course of its legislative duties. 86 The Court thus held that the annotations were not copyrightable.87

Developments

After Georgia v. PRO SDOs and public-access groups dispute the relevance of Georgia v. PRO to their ongoing copyright disputes.88 Public-access groups cite the case for its pronouncement that “no one may own the law” and argue that incorporation by reference transforms privately authored standards into uncopyrightable government edicts.89 For their part, SDOs contend that the key to the Court’s decision in Georgia v. PRO was that the OCGA annotations were authored by the legislature. 90 In contrast, most IBR standards are created independently of the government. Under Georgia v. PRO, the government-edicts doctrine does not apply to “private parties” who “lack the authority to make or interpret the law.”91

At least three federal district courts have decided cases involving copyright in IBR standards following Georgia v. PRO. All three held that the government-edicts doctrine did not apply, but largely ruled against the SDOs’ copyright claims on other grounds. One of these decisions was appealed and upheld by the appellate court.