The article discusses legal issues surrounding copyright of standards by Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs). The author cites legal cases in the healthcare industry where the copyright of procedure codes of the American Medical Association (AMA) was challenged by Practice Management Information Corp, which wanted to publish the AMA code. The company believed that, because the code was made mandatory for hospitals treating Medicare patients, the code was not subject to copyright law. The use of standards in computer science, including a precedent setting case concerning computer macros, is discussed.