Page:International Code Council v. UpCodes (2020).pdf/34

 Book’s valuations or the average value of the Red Book’s valuations and those of a competing compilation. See id. at 63, 73–74. Among other concerns, the Second Circuit observed that if a government’s mere reference to a copyrighted work stripped that work of protection, then the establishment of an educational curriculum could strip copyright in countless books referenced as assigned reading. See id. at 74.

The Ninth Circuit raised similar concerns in Practice Mgmt. Info. Corp. v. Am. Med. Ass’n, 121 F.3d 516 (9th Cir. 1997) (“ PMIC ”). There, the Ninth Circuit refused to find that the American Medical Association lost its copyright in a medical coding system merely because a state statute required private parties to reference the medical codes in that system when applying for benefits. Like the Second Circuit, the court expressed concern that if mere references to copyrighted works sufficed to strip copyright, that could destroy copyrights in countless works including model building codes, various technical reference standards, and the legal Bluebook. See id. at 519, 519 n.5.

ICC argues that Veeck and BOCA cannot be reconciled with CCC, and that this Court must consequently hold that the privately-authored portions of the I-Codes as Adopted