Oracle v Google: Copyright in APIs Explained for Non-Programmers

On 9 May 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its opinion in Oracle America, Inc v Google Inc. [PDF 342kB], in which it overturned the earlier ruling by District Judge William Alsup that Oracle's Java API declaring code was not protected by copyright.  I will explain what that means, for non-programmers, below.  But the significant point of this judgment is that Google’s Android operating system – now by far the most popular smartphone operating system globally – has appropriated elements of Oracle’s Java programming language environment that are subject to copyright protection.  Potentially, therefore, Google may be found to to have infringed copyrights owned by Oracle.

This is a blog about patents and innovation, and I do not usually write about copyright.  But the Oracle/Google litigation started out as a combined patent and copyright matter, and one of the most popular early articles on this blog was about this particular dispute.  The patent issues have since fallen by the wayside, but I have continued to follow the fortunes of this case out of personal interest.

Although the decision in this appeal is technically a loss for Google, it is far from being the end of the story.  The case is now going to return to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for a further trial, to decide whether Google’s use of Oracle’s programming code is covered by a ‘fair use’ defence.  If so, then Google will be off the hook.  If not, then it will probably owe Oracle an absolute shed-load of cash in damages!

I want to try to explain what this case is all about, and why it is really important, in the simplest terms possible, assuming that many of my readers are not programmers.

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Tags: Computer programs, Copyright, Oracle v Google

Mobile Patent Disputes Creating a New Class of ‘Celebrity Judge’

Question: What do Lucy Koh, William Alsup, Richard Posner, Annabelle Bennett and Colin Birss have in common?  Answer: They have all been receiving far more press coverage than they probably would ever have imagined when they chose a career in law!

In case you are not familiar with these names (although most readers of this blog would most likely have heard of at least one of them):

1. Judge Lucy H Koh is the judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose, who is presiding over the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung in that court, and who recently issued preliminary injunctions against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices;
2. Judge William Alsup is the judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco, who presided over the case brought by Oracle against Google, finding that Google’s Android operating system does not infringe Oracle’s Java patents and copyrights;
3. Judge Richard Posner is an appellate judge in the 7th Circuit who volunteered to step down into the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to hear patent infringement cases brought by Motorola and Apple against one another, only to toss the entire dispute out on the basis that neither party had any viable claim for damages against the other;
4. Justice Annabelle Bennett is the Australian Federal Court judge who last year issued a preliminary injunction delaying the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet for five months, until her decision was overturned on appeal; and
5. Judge Colin Birss is the UK Patents Court judge who this week ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 does not infringe registered design rights owned by Apple relating to the iPad.

Of course, it is the role of a judge to hear cases and issue decisions in all matters, great and small, which may come before them.  But such is the level of interest and media attention to the global disputes currently playing out between tech giants, there has been virtually nothing of even minor note to have played out in these judges’ courtrooms that has not been widely reported.  With journalists stationed in the galleries listening to days of – mostly tedious – technical and legal testimony and argument, it is hardly surprising that anything remotely interesting, entertaining or quotable should be quickly disseminated, especially with most judges permitting (or at least tolerating) live tweeting from their courtrooms.

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Tags: Apple-v-Samsung, Motorola, Oracle v Google, Smartphone wars

Oracle vs Google II – the Android Strikes Back!

Currently, the list in the sidebar to the right shows that the most-viewed article ever posted on this blog is our analysis of the background to Oracle's IP infringement lawsuit against Google (Why Has Oracle Sued Google? 18 August 2010).

Now, according to a Reexamination Alert from the firm of Westerman Hattori Daniels & Adrian LLP, Google has fired the next salvo in the ongoing dispute by asking the USPTO to reexamine four of the patents asserted by Oracle – US Patent nos. 5,966,702, 6,061,520, 6,125,447 & RE 38,104.

In principle, full details of reexamination proceedings, including documents filed by the parties, are available via the USPTO's Public Patent Application Information Retrieval (Public PAIR) system.  In practice, finding the documents can be less than straightforward, but for those readers who may wish to follow the process we provide further information and instructions at the end of this article.

So far, it appears that the documents filed by Google are only available in three of the cases, although we expect that the other will follow shortly.

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Tags: Computer programs, Oracle v Google, Reexamination, Smartphone wars, US

Google Pushes Back on Oracle's Java IP Law Suit

The most read article we have yet published on the Patentology blog was Why has Oracle Sued Google? which discussed the background to Oracle's complaint of patent and copyright infringement against Google Inc., in relation to the Android software for mobile devices.

Google has now filed its reply to Oracle's complaint (read the reply here), in which it has denied that the Android software violates Java patents and copyrights.  In its own version of the background to the suit, Google has also accused Oracle of hypocrisy, saying that back in 2007 "Sun came under significant criticism from members of the open source community, including Oracle Corp., for its refusal to fully open source Java."

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Tags: Computer programs, Infringement, Open source, Oracle v Google, Patent litigation, Smartphone wars

Why Has Oracle Sued Google?

On Thursday, 12 August 2010, Oracle America Inc filed suit against Google Inc in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, contending that Google's Android software for mobile devices violates Java patents and copyrights that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems Inc back in January.  (Read the complaint here.)

Oracle America representative Karen Tillman said last Friday that "in developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property.  This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement."

This appears to be the story of a clever strategy by Sun/Oracle to monetise intellectual assets (patents, copyrights, and other intellectual capital embodied in the Java platform) through open-source licensing, and an ambitious plan by Google to work around that strategy.  Time will tell who prevails, but in the meantime we will take a look at the story so far.

 

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Tags: Computer programs, Licensing, Open source, Oracle v Google, Smartphone wars