Oracle Beats Google In Android Appeal

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ElP01201,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/16/2014 | 10:48:42 PM

Re: APIs should be copyright protected

"APIs are fundamentally different that literary text because they have a functional component. When an API exists with a certain structure, you have to use that structure for interoperability. If you don't, you get an error."

The point is that you don't use the structure. The structure is the intellectual property. You get an error when you don't use the structure because then you're beginning to use your own brain to build some intellectual property.

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Thomas Claburn,
User Rank: Author
5/12/2014 | 1:08:21 PM

Re: APIs should be copyright protected

>If we take this reasoning to the extreme, anyone can write a book based on a popular book with the same story outline, same plot, same characters (albiet with different names), same locations, etc, but with different words.

But copyright law allows that. You can write a book that's similar to another book as long as the words are different. People do that all the time. Think how many versions of Romeo and Juliet there are.

APIs are fundamentally different that literary text because they have a functional component. When an API exists with a certain structure, you have to use that structure for interoperability. If you don't, you get an error.

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50%

DonnKilat,
User Rank: Apprentice
5/12/2014 | 12:18:05 PM

APIs should be copyright protected

In 2012, US District Court Judge William Alsup denied Oracle's claim that the "structure, sequence, and organization" of its Java APIs are protected under copyright law. He ruled that as long as the code used to implement a specific method differs from Oracle's code, anyone can write code that performs the same function as the methods that form the Java API.

If we take this reasoning to the extreme, anyone can write a book based on a popular book with the same story outline, same plot, same characters (albiet with different names), same locations, etc, but with different words. I don't care much for Oracle, Google, Java or Android (I'm a .NET guy), but I'm glad Oracle won. I've been following this issue up until Alsup made his verdict, but everyone knew back then, that no matter the verdict Alsup made, that verdict would be appealed by whoever lost. I don't think Oracle would get any money just yet. But I hope this will set a precedent that APIs are copyrightable. Anyone who has designed a framework before, no matter how small, will say that framework design is a creative process. Don't let your Oracle-hate or Google-love blind you.

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50%

Drew Conry-Murray,
User Rank: Ninja
5/12/2014 | 11:54:49 AM

Re: Code

I imagine Google will appeal this. They've got deep pockets and good lawyers. Android is really important to Google's mobile presence, so there's motivation to fight.

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50%

MatthewB897,
User Rank: Apprentice
5/12/2014 | 10:19:24 AM

Re: Code

Orcale does more than charge as much as it can for its crappy DB, they are also one of the biggest patent troll in the industry and have been called so for the past 4 years. They have been mostly irrlavent in the industry for some time now. The only thing that keeps them a float is the buiessness that are stuck with oracle and their trolling.

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50%

mak63,
User Rank: Ninja
5/12/2014 | 2:43:43 AM

Oracle

Just to hear the name Oracle makes me sick to my stomach. Specially after the fiasco they did on Cover Oregon.
I hope Google takes the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

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100%

danielcawrey,
User Rank: Ninja
5/11/2014 | 12:59:37 PM

Code

This is indeed a big problem for interoperability code. But when Oracle bought Sun in 2009, Android had already been developed and deployed. I believe that Sun had some idealistic tendencies when developing technologies like Java; there's a reason why Oracle bought them in the respect that they were having money problems.

Oracle does not have money problems. That's because Oracle charges its customers as much as it can. This lawsuit is a very succinct example of that.

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