United States · Bill · S
S. 835 (118th)
Pro Codes Act
Introduced
16 March 2023
Last action
—
Status
Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Sponsors
—
Subjects
Discovery layer
Source updated
10 August 2026
Summary
Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes Act or the Pro Codes Act This bill addresses copyright protections for privately-developed technical standards that are incorporated into a law or regulation (e.g., a state law that requires buildings to comply with the electrical standards developed by a private standards development organization). Currently, there is not a consensus as to whether a technical standard that has been incorporated by reference into a law retains copyright protection. (A technical standard created by a private organization is typically eligible for copyright protection, but some courts have ruled that standards incorporated into law lose their copyright protections for various reasons. For example, some courts have held that incorporated standards effectively became law and therefore entered the public domain.) Under this bill, a technical standard shall retain its copyright protection even if it has been incorporated by reference into a law or regulation, if the applicable standards development organization makes the standard available on a free publicly accessible online source. If a party asserts that an incorporated technical standard has lost its copyright protection because it has not been made available for free online, the party making that assertion shall bear the burden of proof.
This text is taken from the official record. PoliticalRepo does not editorialize.
Timeline
No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.
Votes
No vote records are attached yet.
Versions
No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.
Documents
3 official files
Introduced in Senate (text)
Introduced in Senate · EN · 16 March 2023
Introduced in Senate (PDF)
Introduced in Senate · EN · 16 March 2023
Introduced in Senate
summary · EN · 16 March 2023
Sponsors
No sponsors or actors listed by the source.
Related records
No cross-record relationships stored yet.
Sources
PoliticalRepo is an index and interpretation layer, not the authoritative legal source.
- Official source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/835
- Open data entity: https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/118/s/835