IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Creative Commons, Open Source Initiative, Wikimedia Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and many other associations and companies (total ) as independent participants () of the reopening Supreme Court case between Google and Oracle related to the use of the Java API in the Android platform. The companies provided the court with an opinion with their expert assessment of the proceedings, taking advantage of the right to participate in the trial of a third party who is not related to one of the parties, but who is interested in making an adequate decision by the court. The Supreme Court is expected to make its decision in June.
IBM company that copyrighting publicly available computer interfaces can hurt business and slow down innovation, and companies of all sizes should be able to use open APIs in their developments. Microsoft that Google's use of the Java API is of a nature (fair use). Mozilla that copyright laws should not apply to the API, and developers should be able to safely use the API to ensure product portability and create alternative solutions.
Recall that in 2012 a judge with programming experience, with the position of Google and that the name tree that forms the API is part of a command structure, a set of characters associated with a particular function. Such a set of commands is treated by copyright law as not subject to copyright, since duplication of the command structure is an indispensable condition for ensuring compatibility and portability. Therefore, the identity of lines with declarations and header descriptions of methods does not matter - to implement similar functionality, the names of the functions that form 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 won in the US Federal Court of Appeals - The Court of Appeal recognized that the Java API is the intellectual property of Oracle. After that, Google changed tactics and tried to prove that the implementation of the Java API in the Android platform is fair use, and this attempt . Google's position was that creating portable software does not require an API license, and repeating the API to create interoperable functional counterparts is "fair use". According to Google, classifying APIs as intellectual property will negatively affect the industry, as it undermines the development of innovation, and the creation of interoperable functional analogues of software platforms may become the subject of lawsuits.
Oracle filed an appeal for the second time, and again the case was in her 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.
Source: opennet.ru