[License-discuss] Copyright on APIs

[Pamela Chestek]

On 7/7/2019 4:23 AM, Henrik Ingo wrote:
> While I haven't closely followed the details of Oracle vs Google,
> purely from a layman and business standpoint it seems clear that
> Google did create Android / Dalvik exactly to be interoperable with
> Java. This means one can run the same Java source code on either
> platform and the java.* namespace offers the same packages and
> functionality.
I believe this is an important distinction that is often missed. No,
Android is not compatible with Java and was not meant to be. "As we
noted in the prior appeal, however, Google did not seek to foster any
'inter-system consistency' between its platform and Oracle's Java
platform. Oracle, 750 F.3d at 1371. And Google does not rely on any
interoperability arguments in this appeal." /Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google
LLC/, 886 F.3d 1179, 1206 (Fed. Cir. 2018). If the Supreme Court doesn't
go beyond its remit in /Google v. Oracle/, the earlier cases holding
that this type of use is a fair use will still be good law.

> But importantly, interoperability also goes the other way: Android was
> compatible with the millions of developers familiar with Java syntax
> and standard libraries.
This is Google's argument why it is a fair use. It is what the Supreme
Court's decision is likely to decide, although the Court may go beyond
that. The main decision on this type of compatibility, /Lotus Dev. Corp.
v. Borland Int'l, Inc./, 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995), held that the
Lotus 1-2-3 menu hierarchy was an uncopyrightable method of operation.
The Supreme Court heard the case but was equally divided, with the
result that the appeals court's decision was affirmed.
>
> If I remember correctly, Oracle did find early on one function
> implementation that had indeed been copy pasted from OpenJDK to
> Android. But this was so minor (and obvious) it is not part of the
> issues decided in higher courts.
>
Yes, there was minor copying but it's dropped out of the case.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20190707/4e862fee/attachment.html>