After Oracle appealed against the decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the APIs could be protected by copyright and said that Google’s Android software had infringed them.
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After Google prevailed in the first trial, Oracle appealed, and an appellate panel ruled in 2014 that the lower court had erred, sending the case between the two Silicon Valley titans back for a new trial. During the development of the Android operating system, Google used 37 APIs built with the open-sourced standard edition Java Platform (J2SE).
Oracle said it will appeal the latest verdict on “numerous grounds”. Which should prove to be of additional reassurance to those over at Google and those who make use of similar tools under a “fair use” policy. If Oracle had won the case the next phase of the trial would have been a “damages phase” to figure out how much Google would be required to pay.
Google uses Java in its Android smartphone operating system which powers about 80% of the world’s mobile devices.
Sun Microsystems, the developer of Java, released the programming language under a free software license in 2007.
An amicus brief filed in 2013 on behalf of 32 prominent computer scientists by the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that Alsup’s decision in Google’s favor should be upheld.
The ruling could indicate the winding down of a legal battle – but Oracle is likely to appeal.
“This verdict comes after an earlier district court opinion finding the API labels in question uncopyrightable was reversed by the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case”.
High-profile witnesses like Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt convinced the jury that Google did not steal any intellectual property.
Oracle had argued that seeking copyright protection to pieces of code called APIs (application programming interfaces) would threaten innovation. Another trial on the same case in 2012, ended in a deadlocked jury. Oracle said it will appeal the jury’s ruling.
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The verdict is a big win for Google for a variety of reasons.
