(US) Construction Specifications Institute v. Zerodocs.com: Industry-Standard Taxonomy Held Unprotectable Under Copyright; Nominative Fair Use Defeats Lanham Act Claims (2026)

(US) Construction Specifications Institute v. Zerodocs.com: Industry-Standard Taxonomy Held Unprotectable Under Copyright; Nominative Fair Use Defeats Lanham Act Claims (2026)

In The Construction Specifications Institute, Inc. v. Zerodocs.com, Inc., No. 8:25-cv-00475-JWH-JDE (C.D. Cal. Sept. 1, 2026), Judge John W. Holcomb granted Zerodocs summary judgment on all remaining claims, holding that the divisions, numbers, titles, and taxonomy of CSI’s MasterFormat—the industry standard for organizing construction specifications—were not protectable by copyright.

Zerodocs sold SimpleSpec, a library of specification templates organized under MasterFormat number-and-title pairs such as “03 30 00 – Cast-In-Place Concrete.” CSI conceded that individual numbers and titles were unprotectable short phrases, see Mitel, Inc. v. Iqtel, Inc., 124 F.3d 1366 (10th Cir. 1997), but argued that the system of categorization as a whole was protectable.

Finding no controlling Ninth Circuit authority, the court considered American Dental Ass’n v. Delta Dental Plans Ass’n, 126 F.3d 977 (7th Cir. 1997), and Southco, Inc. v. Kanebridge Corp., 258 F.3d 148 (3d Cir. 2001) (en banc), and found MasterFormat closer to Southco. CSI’s descriptors were concise statements dictated by the underlying facts, its revision criteria were utilitarian, and its alternative terms reflected functional completeness rather than authorial choice.

Importantly, the court did not hold systems categorically uncopyrightable under Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879); it concluded only that this taxonomy fell short and recognized that others may qualify.

The Lanham Act claims also failed on nominative fair use. Applying New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992), and Yuga Labs, Inc. v. Ripps, 144 F.4th 1137 (9th Cir. 2025), the court found that Zerodocs used the “CSI” mark to refer to CSI’s own standard and, with the sponsorship factor at most neutral, that CSI had not shown a likelihood of confusion.

The ruling is limited to the MasterFormat elements asserted on this record and does not reach UniFormat, OmniClass, or CSI’s trademark registrations. CSI has publicly disagreed with the decision, and an appeal could put the American Dental/Southco question before the Ninth Circuit.

For owners of codes, classification systems, and technical standards, protection depends on whether a system embodies sufficient expressive choice. Where terminology and organization are dictated by the underlying subject matter and functional requirements, the resulting taxonomy may fall outside copyright protection—even when the system is commercially valuable and widely licensed.