On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.) cannot be copyrighted, reversing a decision by the district court in the case of Code Revision Comm’n v. Public.Resource.org.

The court held that the Official Code, including editorial catchlines and annotations written by LexisNexis, is constructively authored by the people of the State of Georgia, through its representatives in the legislature and their contractors. As such, the court reasoned, Georgia’s single official version of its statutes, the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, is in the public domain.

The case was brought when nonprofit Public.Resource.org scanned the O.C.G.A., distributed the scanned version to state legislators and published it online.  The state Code Commission sued Public.Resource.org in federal district court for copyright infringement, and Public.Resource.org countersued for a declaratory judgment holding that state statutes are in the public domain and therefore uncopyrightable.  The district court ruled for the state and issued a preliminary injunction, requiring Public.Resource.org to take all copies offline.

The Eleventh Circuit’s opinion reversed, holding that the statutes themselves were clearly in the public domain under centuries of copyright precedents.  In analyzing whether editorial annotations written by private publisher LexisNexis were copyrightable, the court held that the Code Commission had supervisory control over the work of LexisNexis, and that its annotations were merged with the statutory Code to produce the single, official, authoritative version of Georgia’s statutes.

Therefore, the court held, the complete O.C.G.A., including editorial annotations written by a private publisher on behalf of the Georgia Legislature, is constructively authored by the people of the State of Georgia.  The court held that the entire O.C.G.A. was therefore uncopyrightable and in the public domain.  As the court concluded:

[T]he annotations in the OCGA are attributable to the constructive authorship of the People. To advance the interests and effect the will of the People, their agents in the General Assembly have chosen to create an official exposition on the meaning of the laws of Georgia. In creating the annotations, the legislators have acted as draftsmen giving voice to the sovereign’s will. The resulting work is intrinsically public domain material, belonging to the People, and, as such, must be free for publication by all.

Code Revision Comm’n v. Public.Resource.org, No. 17-11589 (11th Cir., Oct. 19, 2018). The opinion is considered an important win for entrepreneurs, innovators, and members of the public who wish to use public law.

Law Street Media Staff

Law Street Media Staff posts are written by the team at Fastcase and Law Street Media

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit doesn’t have this problem often.  But in an October 15 filing, it sent 18 copies of a petition for rehearing to the U.S. Marshalls Service for disposition, because the petitioner attached cannabinoid samples to each copy.  Appellate litigation for the win.

From the Court’s order:

Appellant Jeffrey Nathan Schirripa submitted to the court 18 copies of his confidential petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc. Upon examination, Appellant affixed to each petition what appear to be samples of cannabinoids, which may be controlled substances possessed or mailed in violation of federal law.

IT IS ORDERED THAT:

The Clerk of Court is directed to transmit these 18 documents to the U.S. Marshals Service for appropriate disposition or alternate action within the purview of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Court of Federal Claims denied Mr. Schirripa’s demand that the court enjoin the United States from enforcing the Controlled Substance Act, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.  You can find the complete docket for the case here.

Hat tip to University of Missouri School of Law Professor Dennis Crouch who originally tagged this nugget on Patentlyo.  As of this writing, there is no word about whether Schirripa will appeal the case to the high court.

Law Street Media Staff

Law Street Media Staff posts are written by the team at Fastcase and Law Street Media

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With only so many billable hours in the day it’s costly to spend your time on tedious administrative tasks. Luckily there are a growing number of productivity solutions geared towards helping your office’s efficiency skyrocket and your costs decline, all while saving you from the daily grind. Lawyer Sean Robichaud recently asked his colleagues on Twitter:

Question for lawyers: what is one implementation of tech into your firm or practice that has changed everything for the better?

— Sean Robichaud (@SeanRobichaud) October 11, 2018

Here are a few of the best responses:

Clio x Vonage

You’ve probably heard of Clio, the cloud practice management software is one of the biggest names in legal tech, but Clio is hardly a static product that can be easily defined at any given moment. Rather, it’s a veritable ecosystem of integrations and networks that work with office tools you may already be using.

One of the most exciting examples of this is the Clio plugin for Vonage, the VOIP provider. The Vonage gUnify Connector for Clio allows you to log your calls and associate them with your matters in Clio. You can also use your web browser to make calls with the “click to dial” feature directly from the plugin.

iAnnotate

Whether we like it or not PDFs are still heavily used in the practice of law. The iAnnotate app for iOS makes it easy to manipulate PDFs and easily share them. It’s simple to add drawings, comments, and other annotations, clip web pages and convert them to PDF, as well as access your files located in Dropbox, Google Drive, and BOX with cloud storage integrations.

Slack

In a few short years Slack has essentially transformed office communication, moving complicated team conversations away from tiresome e-mail chains and into fast-paced chat rooms called “channels.” Slack also allows for quick direct messages between team members, all but eliminating the need to send short messages with e-mails or speak over the phone. The platform is also customizable, with offices able to install various automated bots to fit their needs.

SimplyFile

E-mail can be overwhelming, and the longer it takes you to find messages, the less productive you become. With SimplyFile you can automate e-mail filing so you always know where your important correspondences reside. After you train the Outlook plugin to understand your filing patterns, it will begin suggesting the best folder for each message, helping you keep everything neat and orderly.

TrialPad

TrialPad is an iPad app that transforms your device into a virtual trial notebook. But where it truly shines is as a presentation tool that allows you to cleanly display information to fact finders. There’s the ability to pull out and highlight quotes in documents, play video clips, and add evidence into an “admitted” category, or apply exhibit numbers, in real time.

ScanSnap Desktop Scanner

Now for something in the hardware category. The Fujitsu ScanSnap Document Scanner may seem like a luxury, but there is something to be said for a duplex scanner that just works and makes sharing documents wirelessly a breeze. The ScanSnap is able to drop documents and business cards straight into all of your favorite cloud storage and business services, like Evernote and Salesforce.

HelloSign

It’s hard to believe signing contracts is still a logistical headache for many firms, but it is. HelloSign has created a suite of products that are designed to make eSignatures as simple as possible, with Google plugins, APIs, Salesforce integration, and HelloWorks (for employment documentation). Whether it’s on a desktop or over a mobile app, HelloSign makes signing and sharing documents that require large numbers of signees simple.

In any office, productivity is king.  Simple office solutions like these help law firms earn more money, be more profitable, and help more people in less time.

Morgan Wright

Morgan Wright is a product manager at Fastcase and publisher of RAIL: The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law. She earned her undergraduate degree from Hood College and her law degree from the University of Richmond School of Law. She has worked at the Institute for Actual Innocence and the Office of the Capital Defender in Virginia, as well as in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

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Times are changing in the world of law school admissions, with at least 23 institutions, including Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and Georgetown now accepting GRE scores instead of, or alongside, the long-favored LSAT. What’s more, 25 percent of law schools are currently working on retooling their processes to accept the GRE.

Why the shift? According to administrators, GRE scores are predictive of a student’s success as a 1L and open the legal profession to students with a wider set of skills and backgrounds. The GRE is also offered in a computer format, almost every day of the year, in more than 1,000 places, while the LSAT is not nearly as accessible – it’s offered on paper only and can only be taken four times a year.

However, it’s unlikely the LSAT will become obsolete any time soon. The American Bar Association (ABA) still requires that 90 percent of an entering class at an ABA accredited-law school have an LSAT score.  The Princeton Review keeps a running tally of law schools accepting the GRE.

Morgan Wright

Morgan Wright is a product manager at Fastcase and publisher of RAIL: The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law. She earned her undergraduate degree from Hood College and her law degree from the University of Richmond School of Law. She has worked at the Institute for Actual Innocence and the Office of the Capital Defender in Virginia, as well as in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

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