A heads up to all...
The Globe and Mail
Copyright (c) 1999 by The Globe and Mail
Washington DC
Wednesday, June 2, 1999
By Barrie McKenna, Washington Bureau
Top U.S. Court Balks on Thomson appeal : Legal publishing industry left in
limbo
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal launched by Thomson
Corp.'s legal publishing unit, West Group, in a dispute over the company's
copyright over a widely used page-numbering system for U.S. court documents.
The decision, handed down yesterday in Washington, leaves the legal
publishing industry in limbo over whether individuals and companies must buy
West's legal casebooks in order to cite publicly available U.S. court cases.
West's indexing system, considered the industry standard, is designed to
simplify searches of U.S. court cases dating back more than 100 years. West
organizes and collects the documents in its Westlaw casebooks that are used
by thousands of lawyers and judges across the United States.
The Supreme Court opted not to hear West's appeal of two lower-court
decisions that had thrown out the company's copyright claim over the
indexing system. But Thomson officials said the high court's decision will
have no impact because of another lower-court ruling that upholds the
company's copyright.
'We will still vigorously defend ourselves if anyone decides to steal our
intellectual property,' said Patrick Sexton, spokesman for West Group.
'People will have to look at those two court cases and decide what they want
to do.'
But Thomson's rivals said the Supreme Court's move undermines West's
domination of the legal publishing business.
'What we are talking about is the erosion of a monopoly position,' said Alan
Sugarman, president of New York-based Hyperlaw Inc. , which sells legal data
bases on CD-ROMs. 'The impact can be very slow and very subtle. But people
can now sit and pick away at things that [West Group] once controlled.' Mr.
Sugarman, whose company has waged a long legal battle against West's
copyright over the court-numbering system, said the decision is 'great news'
because it limits any company's ability to copyright core legal and
governmental information.
'When this business started, the Internet barely existed,' he said. 'This
opens enormous avenues for us.'
Hyperlaw is one of two companies that have challenged West's copyright
claim. The other is Matthew Bender & Co., a unit of Reed Elsevier PLC ,
which owns Lexis-Nexis. They and other legal publishers pay West millions of
dollars a year in licencing fees.
For Toronto-based Thomson, the legal publishing business is the heart of the
company's largest and most profitable business unit -- legal and regulatory
publishing. In 1998, the division posted operating profit of $519-million
(U.S.) on sales of $2.2-billion (U.S.), or more than a third of the
company's total revenue. The legal and regulatory division has 12,000
employees worldwide.
Thomson shares were unchanged yesterday at $44.20 (Canadian) on the Toronto
Stock Exchange yesterday.
Gayle O'Connor, Legal Industry Marketing Specialist
goconnor@courtlink.com
CourtLink
electronic access to our nation's courts
1-800-774-7317
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