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posted by janrinok on Tuesday January 14 2020, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the #include⠀<stdio.h> dept.

The case Google v. Oracle America, previously named Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., is being heard by the US Supreme Court. At the center of the case is whether programmers require permission to use an application programming interface (API). The outcome will determine the extent to which APIs can or should be copyrighted. If it turns out that copyright can be used to lock competitors out of using any given API, then there are severe repercussions for software development, as all programs these days rely heavily on pre-existing libararies which are then accessed via APIs.

Google: The case for open innovation:

The Court will review whether copyright should extend to nuts-and-bolts software interfaces, and if so, whether it can be fair to use those interfaces to create new technologies, as the jury in this case found. Software interfaces are the access points that allow computer programs to connect to each other, like plugs and sockets. Imagine a world in which every time you went to a different building, you needed a different plug to fit the proprietary socket, and no one was allowed to create adapters.

This case will make a difference for everyone who touches technology—from startups to major tech platforms, software developers to product manufacturers, businesses to consumers—and we're pleased that many leading representatives of those groups will be filing their own briefs to support our position.

Mozilla: Competition and Innovation in Software Development Depend on a Supreme Court Reversal in Google v. Oracle:

At bottom in the case is the issue of whether copyright law bars the commonplace practice of software reimplementation, "[t]he process of writing new software to perform certain functions of a legacy product." (Google brief p.7) Here, Google had repurposed certain functional elements of Java SE (less that 0.5% of Java SE overall, according to Google's brief, p. 8) in its Android operating system for the sake of interoperability—enabling Java apps to work with Android and Android apps to work with Java, and enabling Java developers to build apps for both platforms without needing to learn the new conventions and structure of an entirely new platform.

Devclass: Google says nature of APIs under threat as Oracle case heads to US Supreme Court:

The case – ten years in making – centres on Oracle's claims that its Java patents and copyrights were infringed by Google when the search giant created its Android mobile operating system. An initial ruling in Google's favour was overturned on appeal, and the case is finally due to land in the Supreme Court this year. Google filed its opening brief for the justices this week.

When was the last time, outside of school, when you yourself have written a program entirely from scratch and not used even a single set of application programming interfaces? Yeah. Thought so.


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  • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 14 2020, @05:53PM (2 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 14 2020, @05:53PM (#943155) Journal

    Except patents do not apply to software, mathematics, or business models. There is a lot of noise trying to fool people into paying up anyway, but at the end of the day they don't have to at least not for software.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:12PM (1 child)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:12PM (#943165) Homepage Journal

    That would be incorrect. Software patents have been severely limited, and rightly so, but they have not been thrown out entirely.

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    • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:37PM

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 14 2020, @06:37PM (#943179) Journal

      Ah. Yes. My confusion. The article is about the US and in that jurisdiction they have been weakened but not quite eliminated. In the EU, they have never been valid but small groups of businesses and much larger groups of lawyers are just taking upon themselves to ignore the law and pretend they are allowed. The after effects, in the US, of the "Alice" case are still being worked out but if things keep heading the direction they have been, then software patents will be banned explicitly there too. However, the core of the court's unanimous decision is that abstract ideas cannot be patented.

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      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.