Oracle lost in the challenge of asking Google to bear infringement liability, and the Supreme Court ended more than a decade of legal battles over some key components of Android. The case can be traced back to 2010. Oracle believes that Google copied the Java API belonging to Sun Microsystems (Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems) when developing the Android system, and therefore should bear US$8.8 billion in compensation.
Interestingly, Google did not deny that it used these APIs when initially developing Android. However, it believes that their implementation counts as fair use, so there is no reason why the company faces infringement penalties.
Since then, the Android system has undergone a transformation, and now it no longer relies on these controversial components. Nevertheless, the Google v. Oracle case has received close attention from the entire technology industry because it revolves around how to control the API and how to develop the potential impact of software and hardware interoperability.
In the first two jury trials at the district court level, Google won a favorable judgment for the search giant, but the federal court overturned this judgment, and the situation is not optimistic. This leads to the conclusion that APIs may fall into the category of copyright, and Google’s use of them is not fair use. Google filed an application with the US Supreme Court to challenge Oracle’s ruling, but it has not made a final judgment until today.
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In the 6-2 ruling, the lower court’s ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court. “When reviewing the ruling, for the sake of argument, we assumed that these materials are copyrightable,” Judge Stephen Breyer wrote in the ruling. “But we believe that the so-called copying behavior in question here actually constitutes fair use. Therefore, Google’s copying behavior does not violate copyright law.”
“Computer programs are to some extent different from many other copyrightable works because computer programs always serve functional purposes,” Judge Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion. “Because of these differences, fair use plays an important role in computer programs. It provides a context-based check that keeps the copyright monopoly obtained by computer programs within its legal scope.”
The two opposing judges were Judge Clarence Thomas and Judge Samuel Alito. Since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away before the case was debated, only 8 judges delivered the verdict before Justice Amy Coney Barrett took office.
This decision is likely to be welcomed in the technology community, and some people in the industry have expressed concern that improper control granted to developers around APIs may create new major obstacles to software development. Nevertheless, the impact of the ruling may not be clear for a period of time. By ruling that APIs can in fact be protected by copyright, and the definition of fair use depends on how the company actually uses these APIs, this is not a conclusive position that many people hope.
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