[License-discuss] Copyright on APIs

[Chris DiBona]

On Sun, Jul 7, 2019 at 7:30 AM Pamela Chestek <pamela at chesteklegal.com>
wrote:

>
> 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.
>

Specifically, there wasn't. We had released a new , improved version of a
sorting algorithim to teh jcp and to harmony, they then claimed that the
code was copied from java to android, when if came from Josh Bloch at
google in the first place.


> Pam
>
> Pamela S. Chestek
> Chestek Legal
> PO Box 2492
> Raleigh, NC 27602
> 919-800-8033
> pamela at chesteklegal.com
> www.chesteklegal.com
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