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SCOTUS Declines to Hear Arguments in Google Vs. Oracle

posted by janrinok on Monday June 29 2015, @11:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the grab-some-popcorn dept.

physicsmajor writes:

TheVerge is reporting the Supreme Court has declined to hear the long-running Google, Inc. v. Oracle America, Inc. case concerning copyright over the Java APIs. This is an important case, because it sets precedent if publicly documented software APIs can be copyrighted. This has relevance throughout the FOSS community, from Wine (reimplementing the Windows API) to Octave (reimplementing the MATLAB API).

A brief history of events: The original decision, handed down in 2012 in district court, found strongly against Oracle that APIs were not protected by copyright. Oracle appealed, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court decision, finding the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable.

Google petitioned SCOTUS to hear the case. The Court seemed unsure, and requested the input of the Solicitor General (Donald Verrilli, appointed by Barack Obama). Mr. Verrilli replied with a brief instructing SCOTUS not to hear the case. Today, SCOTUS officially declined to hear arguments.

By declining to hear arguments SCOTUS defers to the appeals court ruling: APIs are copyrightable. Google may still have a defense under the Fair Use doctrine, but now all other users of APIs will have to prove Fair Use if a suit is brought. There is no option to overturn this precedent save a new case working through the courts. Soylentils, what will the effects of this decision be? Have you used or reverse-engineered code from public APIs in your own work?

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:34AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:34AM (#203103) Journal

    Yeah avoid the USA,, oh wait the trans Atlantic trade deal. The sue party may begin!

    So if you are a developer that wish to use an API of a company based in USA, keep out of that country. Bonus point for no compromised hardware-software by law, no really nasty letters, sue happy lawyers etc.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:13AM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:13AM (#203118)

    There's also a Trans Pacific Trade deal. It'll be pretty much the same thing I suspect.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:17AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:17AM (#203120) Journal

      Yeah, Trans sea reach of corporate bullying.