Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.

Java development Java was originally developed at Sun Microsystems starting in December 1990. It included a new programming language, a virtual machine, and a set of libraries for use with the language. These libraries are documented for programmers via application programming interfaces (APIs), which tell programmers what information to provide to library functions and what results to expect back, eliminating any need for the programmer to know how the library they are using does what it does. These libraries together provide the "Java virtual machine" which programmers write programs to use (run upon). The common way in which a common set of libraries are used across all "Java virtual machines" allows for interoperability, or as marketed by Sun, "Write once, run anywhere"; a programmer need only create one version of their software which, because of the single group of APIs common to all Java virtual machines, can thus be run on any computing platform that supports Java. The Java language was released to the public in 1995, under the Sun Community Source License, making the source code freely available but requiring that products using the code were maintained to the Java standard, and that any commercial derivative works were licensed by Sun. While anyone could program in the language itself, Sun maintained the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) and Mobile Edition (Java ME) libraries, provided to users as pre-compiled Java bytecode, and their respective APIs, as well as the Technology Compatibility Kits (TCKs) that tested an implementation against the Java standard. Over 2006 and 2007, due to pressure from developers, Sun changed the license of the various Java packages to use the GNU General Public License with a "classpath exception", allowing developers the access necessary to make derivative works and the ability to release applications under a different license. This led to the OpenJDK (Open Java Development Kit), first released in 2007. Sun retained strong control over the language and standards itself, licensing the necessary elements like TCKs for commercial users. Android development Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White to develop a mobile phone platform. During the development of Android, Google wanted to incorporate the Java SE libraries. Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt had approached Sun's president Jonathan I. Schwartz about licensing the Java libraries for use in Android. Sun offered a licensing deal of between . Schmidt said Google would have paid for that license, but they were concerned that Sun had also requested some shared control of Android along with the fee. Google states that they wanted more control in order to open source the language and allow third parties to take better advantage of its code; Because of these differences of view, the negotiations failed to reach a deal and Sun refused Google a license for Java. Though Google stated they used this code to ensure interoperability with the Java Standard Edition for other programmers, Sun's president Schwartz congratulated Google the same day, saying they had "strapped another set of rockets to the community's momentum and to the vision defining opportunity across our (and other) planets." During the trial, Schwartz said that at that time of Android's release, despite knowing Google may have bypassed their licensing requirements, "We decided to grit our teeth and support it so anyone supporting it would see us as part of the value chain". Besides allowing them to enter the hardware business, Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison called the Java language "the single most important software asset we have ever acquired". Oracle continued to develop Java and pursue licensing opportunities following its acquisition of Sun. By the release of Android Lollipop (v5.0) in 2014, Google removed the Dalvik virtual machine and replaced it with the Android Runtime, which had been built within Google without any of the Java source code. However, Android continued to use the JavaSE APIs through the extent of the case's litigation up until Android Nougat when it was fully replaced by OpenJDK. == First phase: API copyrightability and patents ==

The first phase of the case lasted from 2010 to 2015. Oracle successfully established that APIs are copyrightable, but their claims of patent infringement were rejected. First District Court trial , who presided over both trials at the District Court level On August 13, 2010, Oracle sued Google for copyright and patent infringement in the District Court for the Northern District of California. Oracle asserted Google was aware that they had developed Android without a Java license and copied its APIs, and that Google therefore infringed Oracle's copyright. Oracle also cited seven Oracle-owned prior patents related to the Java technology created by Sun that Google should have been aware of as they had hired former Sun developers that worked on Java. Oracle sought both monetary damages and an injunction to stop Google from using the allegedly infringing materials. The case was assigned to Judge William Alsup, who split the case into three phases: copyright, patent, and damages. The copyright phase started on April 16, 2012, and consisted of several distinct claims of infringement: a nine-line rangeCheck function, several test files, the structure, sequence and organization (SSO) of the Java (API), and the API documentation. Oracle alleged infringement of 37 separate Java APIs which had derived from the Apache Harmony project. Oracle requested a judgement as a matter of law (JMOL) that the case dismiss any fair use defense since the jury was split, as well as to overturn the jury's decision on eight security-related files that they had reviewed and found non-infringing but which Google had stated they copied verbatim; Alsup concurred. Google asked for a similar JMOL related to rangeCheck, but Alsup denied this request. The patent phase began on May 7, 2012, with the same jury. By the time of trial, Oracle's patent case comprised claims from two patents, 6,061,520 (Method and system for performing static initialization), (the '520 patent) and RE38104 (Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code). (the '104 patent). Google pursued a non-infringement defense. For the '520 patent, they argued that they were using parsing for optimizing static initialization, rather than "simulating execution" as the claim required. For the '104 patent, they argued that the instruction did not include a symbolic reference. On May 23, 2012, the jury found non-infringement on all patent claims. Judge Alsup issued the final verdict for both these phases on May 31, 2012. While the jury had found for Oracle regarding copyright infringement of the APIs, Alsup determined that the APIs were not copyrightable in the first place: Alsup did agree with the jury that the rangeCheck function and eight security files were a copyright infringement, but the only relief available was statutory damages up to a maximum of As a result of these rulings and a stipulation, there was no jury damages phase. The parties agreed to zero dollars in statutory damages for the small amount of copied code by June 2012. First appellate ruling Shortly following the conclusion of the District Court case, both parties attempted to file additional JMOLs on elements of the ruling which Alsup dismissed, leading to Oracle appealing the decision and Google filing a cross-appeal on the literal copying claim. Because the case involved claims related to patents, the appeal was automatically assigned to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The hearing was held on December 4, 2013, and the judgment was released on May 9, 2014. The court noted that Copyright Act provides protection to "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression" (p. 17). The legislative history explains that literary works include "computer programs to the extent that they incorporate authorship in the programmer's expression of original ideas, as distinguished from the ideas themselves" (p. 18). To qualify for copyright protection a work must be original. 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). The court was therefore "first to assess whether the expression is original to the programmer" (p. 24), something that Google had already conceded (p. 21). This led the court to conclude "that the overall structure of Oracle's API packages is creative, original, and resembles a taxonomy" (p. 14). It therefore reversed the district court's decision on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API is copyrightable. It also ruled for Oracle regarding the small amount of literal copying, holding that it was not de minimis. The case was remanded to the District Court for a second trial, to consider whether Google's use was acceptable anyway, under the doctrine of fair use, since the original case had not brought out the facts related to fair use sufficiently for the Appeal Court to rule on that point. In October 2014, Google petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case; this request was denied in June 2015. == Second phase: fair use ==

Second District Court trial As ordered by the Appeals Court, a new district court trial began on May 9, 2016, on the question of whether Google's actions were fair use given the prior ruling that the APIs were copyrightable. Closing arguments were completed on May 23, 2016 and the jury began deliberations. Oracle was seeking damages of up to US$9 billion. On May 26, 2016, the jury found that Android did not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs was protected by fair use. Oracle announced its intention to appeal, and then to hold a re-trial. Oracle officially filed its appeal on October 26, 2016. Second appellate ruling Oracle's appeal was heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 2017. On March 27, 2018, the Court ruled in favor of Oracle. The ruling analyzed the aspects of a fair use claim which were to be decided by a judge and jury, respectively. It then looked at the factual matters which, it had to be assumed, the jury had reached, and their implications in law. Oracle The purpose was commercial, the established historical facts by the jury did not satisfy any of the criteria for fair use, and the Court remanded the case back to the District Court of the Northern District of California to determine the amount of damage that Google should pay Oracle. == Supreme Court ==

Google filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States in January 2019 to challenge the two rulings that were made by the appeals court in Oracle's favor. In its petition, Google centered its case on whether copyright extends to a software interface like an API, and whether the use of the Java API by Google fell within fair use as found at the jury trials. The Trump administration backed Oracle and urged the Court to deny certiorari. Microsoft, Mozilla Corporation, Red Hat Inc., and others filed amicus briefs in support of Google's position. IBM, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Internet Association, the Auto Care Association, and a collective group of over 150 academics and computer professionals also filed briefs supporting Google's stance, cautioning that a decision in favor of Oracle would hurt the computing world as a whole. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on November 15, 2019, and was expected to hear the case on March 24, 2020. However, the Supreme Court postponed its March argument session on March 16 in light of concerns surrounding COVID-19, and later announced that Google v. Oracle was one of several cases from the 2019–20 term to be postponed until the first week of the 2020–21 term. Following the delay, the Court asked parties to submit additional briefs related to the Seventh Amendment, given that the Federal District court had overridden some of the findings of facts that the jury had concluded in their case at the District level. Oral arguments were heard via teleconference due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on October 7, 2020. Decision The Court issued its decision on April 5, 2021. In a 6–2 majority, the Court ruled that Google's use of the Java APIs was within the bounds of fair use, reversing the Federal Circuit Appeals Court ruling and remanding the case for further hearing. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion. Breyer's opinion began with the assumption that the APIs may be copyrightable, and thus proceeded with a review of the four factors that contributed to fair use: • The nature of the copyrighted work: Breyer's analysis identified that APIs served as declaring code rather than implementation, and that in context of copyright, it served an "organization function" similar to the Dewey Decimal System, in which fair use is more applicable. • The purpose and character of the use: Breyer stated that Google took and transformed the Java APIs "to expand the use and usefulness of Android-based smartphones" which "creat[ed] a new platform that could be readily used by programmers". Breyer concluded that "we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google's copying did not violate the copyright law." This conclusion rendered the need to evaluate the copyright of the API unnecessary. Thomas wrote that the majority opinion created a new distinction between implementing code and declaring code that Congress had rejected, and thus, "the result of this distorting analysis is an opinion that makes it difficult to imagine any circumstance in which declaring code will remain protected by copyright." Thomas further stated that in his own fair use analysis that "Google's use of that copyrighted code was anything but fair". ==Impact==

Google v. Oracle was a closely watched case by the tech industry. A ruling favoring Oracle could have had significant effects on past and future software development given the prolific use of APIs. Opponents of the Federal Circuit's ruling, including Google and other developers of Android-based software, had raised several concerns including the impact on interoperability, software innovation, and the potential for bad actors to pick up the rights to old software and file claims against companies who built their software on what were assumed to be open standards. If APIs became subject to copyright protection, it is believed that companies would need to implement deliberately incompatible standards to protect themselves from the risk of complex litigation. This scenario would mean moving away from the current trends in software development which have focused on improving interoperability between different services, allowing apps to communicate with one another, and creating more integrated platforms for end users. At the same time, experts cautioned that a judgment favoring Google's position may weaken protection for copyright for software code developers, allowing competitors with better resources to develop improved products from smaller firms and reduce the motive for innovation within the industry. One example identified by Wired is the Linux operating system. While Linux is fully open source, it is based on POSIX, a set of APIs that mimic those of the commercial Unix operating system that enable high levels of interoperability for developers; a programmer would only need to write one set of code which then can be compiled on any system that has the same API, even if the computing architecture of the systems are different. If case law favored Oracle, the owners of earlier versions of Unix, Micro Focus, could have sought damages from any POSIX-based operating system developer intending to use the operating system for commercial use. == See also ==