Author:   "Susan M. Kornfield"

Date:     3/13

Priority: Normal

BCC:      citation at AO-OCPPO

TO:       unknown

Subject:  ABA Citation Resolution

     I am an attorney, the Chair of my law firm's Intellectual 
Property Practice Group, a professor of copyright law at the 
University of Michigan Law School, and lead counsel in a copyright 
case of national significance currently before the U.S. Supreme Court 
on a petition for writ of certiorari. I am writing in support of 
the long, long overdue resolution to adopt a non-proprietary form of 
citation to judicial decisions. 

     It is bad public policy to permit the acquisition of a monopoly 
as to the manner in which a public document is referenced. The 
judicial decisions that have granted such protection under the guise 
of copyright are flawed analytically and erroneous in their holdings. 
Judicial decisions are in the public domain, under both federal and 
state law. Granting a proprietary position in the form of the 
citation essentially removes them from the public domain, and is a 
violation of public policy and of copyright law. 

     In addition to the harm of limiting public access to these 
important documents, the prices charged by West and Mead Data, and 
the practices relating to access to those documents, are out of 
control and clearly monopolistic. As such, they harm competition 
within that market and the market for providing judicial decisions in 
a variety of formats. 

     I urge the committee, in the strongest terms, to adopt a 
nonproprietary citation format.

Susan M. Kornfield
Chair, Intellectual Property Practice Group
Bodman, Longley & Dahling LLP
110 Miller, Suite 300
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
(313) 761-3780
Visiting Professor of Copyright Law,
University of Michigan Law School
Ann Arbor, Michigan