An industry standard code, or standard industry classification (SIC) code, is often a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and/or practices. Today, many companies, including health care, construction and transportation companies, are forced to use such codes or industry-standard reference numbers to receive governmental reimbursements or governmental approval to operate.

The difficulty is that many industry standards are developed privately or unilaterally by a corporation, trade union or trade association, and as such the standards themselves may be the subject of copyright protection. A company's use of these industry standards — even its creating software that allows its customers to use them — may unknowingly make it liable for copyright infringement.

To bring a claim for direct copyright infringement, a plaintiff must establish ownership of a valid copyright, and further, that the defendant copied protected elements of the copyrighted work. Ordinarily, ownership of a valid copyright is established by way of a copyright registration certificate and tends not to be the subject of much debate before the courts. Courts spend most of their time and effort analyzing the second element: Whether the defendant copied protectable elements of the plaintiff's copyrighted work. Absent evidence of direct copying, proof of infringement involves fact-based showings that the defendant had access to the plaintiff's work and that the parties' works are “substantially similar.”