In its August 20, 2013 opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Unclaimed Property Recovery Service, Inc. v. Kaplan that a copyright holder's authorization to use its purportedly copyrighted complaint in litigation is irrevocable during the pendency of that litigation.

This case involved the copyright of a legal complaint and its exhibits. The plaintiffs, Unclaimed Property Recovery Service (UPRS) and Bernard Gelb, were named plaintiffs in a separate class action. They obtained Certificates of Registration from the US Register of Copyrights for the complaint and accompanying exhibits filed in the class action case, which Gelb allegedly drafted and compiled.

The district court dismissed the class action as time-barred and the class appealed. After a falling out with Kaplan, who the class had retained as counsel, UPRS and Gelb moved to withdraw the entire appeal. The Second Circuit granted the motion only for UPRS and Gelb, leaving the appeal to proceed without them. After the Second Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal, Kaplan, representing the remaining plaintiffs, filed an amended complaint and accompanying exhibits on remand. Portions of the amended complaint were identical to portions of the original complaint.

UPRS and Gelb then filed this copyright infringement case against Kaplan for copying the original complaint and exhibits into the amended complaint and exhibits. The district court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. It held that UPRS and Gelb granted Kaplan an irrevocable license to file an amended version of the complaint. UPRS and Gelb appealed.

The Second Circuit affirmed but restricted its holding to the facts of case. It concluded that, assuming copyright law applies to legal pleadings, UPRS and Gelb's authorization irrevocably conveyed to the present and future parties, attorneys and court the ability to use the document during the pendency of the class action litigation.

Because amending a complaint is a regular component of the litigation process, treating the authorization as irrevocable is necessary for the courts to continue to function and for litigation to proceed without undue restraint. The need to use documents already filed in the case therefore trumped the copyright holder's interest. To hold otherwise would give the copyright holder an unreasonable measure of control over the litigation, potentially disrupting the attorney-client relationship. Therefore, UPRS and Gelb could not use copyright law to prohibit an attorney from filing an amended version of the document in the case.

The court declined to decide whether legal pleadings or other legal documents are subject to copyright law or whether the parties may use the pleading for other purposes unrelated to litigation.