The US Supreme Court has issued a decision regarding the consideration of the Oracle v. Google litigation, which has been dragging on since 2010, related to the use of the Java API in the Android platform. The highest court sided with Google and found that its use of the Java API was fair use.
The court agreed that Google's goal was to create a different system focused on solving problems for a different computing environment (smartphones), and the development of the Android platform helped realize and popularize this goal. History shows that there are various ways in which interface reimplementation can contribute to the further development of computer programs. Google's intentions were to achieve similar creative progress, which is the main purpose of copyright law.
Google borrowed approximately 11500 lines of API structures, which is only 0.4% of the entire API implementation of 2.86 million lines. Given the size and significance of the code used, the 11500 lines were considered by the court to be one small part of a much larger whole. As part of the programming interface, the copied strings are inextricably linked by other (non-Oracle) code that programmers use. Google copied the piece of code in question not because of its perfection or functional advantages, but because it enabled programmers to use existing skills in the new computing environment for smartphones.
Let's remember that in 2012, a judge with programming experience agreed with Google's position and recognized that the name tree that forms the API is part of the command structure - a set of characters associated with a specific function. Such a set of commands is interpreted by copyright law as not subject to copyright, since duplication of command structure is a prerequisite for ensuring compatibility and portability. Therefore, the identity of the lines with declarations and header descriptions of methods does not matter - to implement similar functionality, the function names forming the API must match, even if the functionality itself is implemented differently. Since there is only one way to express an idea or function, everyone is free to use identical declarations, and no one can monopolize such expressions.
Oracle filed an appeal and got the US Federal Court of Appeal to overturn the decision - the appeal court recognized that the Java API is Oracle's intellectual property. After this, Google changed tactics and tried to prove that the implementation of the Java API in the Android platform was fair use, and this attempt was crowned with success. Google's position has been that creating portable software does not require licensing the API, and that replicating the API to create compatible functional equivalents is considered "fair use." According to Google, classifying APIs as intellectual property will have a negative impact on the industry, as it undermines the development of innovation, and the creation of compatible functional analogues of software platforms may become the subject of lawsuits.
Oracle appealed for the second time, and again the case was reviewed in its favor. The court ruled that the principle of “fair use” does not apply to Android, since this platform is being developed by Google for selfish purposes, realized not through the direct sale of a software product, but through control over related services and advertising. At the same time, Google retains control over users through a proprietary API for interacting with its services, which is prohibited from being used to create functional analogues, i.e. The use of the Java API is not limited to non-commercial use. In response, Google filed a petition to the highest court, and the US Supreme Court returned to consider the issue of whether application programming interfaces (APIs) belong to intellectual property and made a final decision in favor of Google.
Source: opennet.ru