and local laws. This conclusion does not preclude the possibility that Defendants infringed ICC’s copyrights by posting the I-Codes as model codes or the I-Code Redlines, though. Defendants’ other forms of copying must be assessed under different doctrinal frameworks. And while the law of public domain is favorable to Defendants, Defendants’ Motion must be denied at this time because the record is ambiguous as to whether what the Defendants actually post constitutes “the law” alone.
- 1. The Government Edicts Doctrine
Neither the Supreme Court nor Congress has explicitly addressed the public domain implications of government references to privately-authored copyrighted works. Nonetheless, Supreme Court case law explaining that “Government Edicts” are in the public domain reflects important principles that guide the Court’s analysis. The Government Edicts doctrine derives from a trio of nineteenth century cases establishing that judicial opinions and related explanatory materials authored by judges could not be copyrighted, though private authors could claim a copyright in the explanatory materials that they authored themselves.
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