Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publishing Co.

158 F.3d 693 (1998)

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Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publishing Co.

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
158 F.3d 693 (1998)

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Facts

West Publishing Company and West Publishing Corporation (West) (defendants) published printed compilations of judicial opinions, the volume and page number of which are used as a standard for citation. Matthew Bender & Company, Incorporated (Bender) (plaintiff) and HyperLaw, Incorporated (HyperLaw) (plaintiff) produced electronic compilations of judicial opinions on CD-ROMs. Both Bender and HyperLaw use star pagination within case text to show what the page number would be in West’s printed edition. West’s compilations do not include all the judicial opinions available in the plaintiffs’ electronic compilations. The plaintiffs filed for declaratory judgment that use of the star pagination to reference West’s citation information did not constitute a copyright infringement. The district court granted summary judgment for Bender and partial summary judgment for HyperLaw. West appealed.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Jacobs, C.J.)

Dissent (Sweet, J.)

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