The Pro Codes Act clarifies who owns the rights to technical standards that get written into laws. Here's the situation: private organizations like engineering groups often create detailed technical standards (like electrical codes or building safety requirements), and these standards are copyrighted. But sometimes lawmakers incorporate these private standards directly into laws and regulations, which creates confusion about whether the copyright still applies. Some courts have said that once a standard becomes part of the law, it's public property and anyone can use it for free. Other courts disagree.

This bill settles the debate by saying that private standards keep their copyright protection even after being written into law—but with one important condition: the organization that created the standard must make it freely available online for anyone to read. If someone argues that a standard should be free because it's part of the law, they have to prove that the organization didn't make it available for free online. Essentially, this protects the copyright holders' interests while ensuring public access, as long as standards organizations do their part by posting the standards online for free.

Pro Codes Act

Coons, Christopher A.

Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes Act or the Pro Codes Act This bill addresses copyright protections for privately-developed technical standards that are incorporated into a law or regulation (e.g., a state law that requires buildings to comply with the electrical standards developed by a private standards development organization). Currently, there is not a consensus as to whether a technical standard that has been incorporated by reference into a law retains copyright protection. (A technical standard created by a private organization is typically eligible for copyright protection, but some courts have ruled that standards incorporated into law lose their copyright protections for various reasons. For example, some courts have held that incorporated standards effectively became law and therefore entered the public domain.) Under this bill, a technical standard shall retain its copyright protection even if it has been incorporated by reference into a law or regulation, if the applicable standards development organization makes the standard available on a free publicly accessible online source. If a party asserts that an incorporated technical standard has lost its copyright protection because it has not been made available for free online, the party making that assertion shall bear the burden of proof.