Microsoft, EFF, Mozilla Tell High Court to Dismiss Oracle’s Google Lawsuit
The Supreme Court should strike down Oracle’s lawsuit against Google’s use of Java programming code (see 1911150052) because innovation relies on interoperability and fair use, tech companies, groups and scholars told the court Monday. Computer innovation depends on “collaborative development…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
and seamless interoperability,” which require reuse of functional code, said Microsoft. The company cited long-applied flexibility of fair use doctrine to address software issues. Eighty-three computer scientists agreed, saying the computer industry has long relied on free use of software interfaces to foster innovation and competition. Supreme Court precedent excludes program interfaces from copyright’s scope, said two intellectual property scholars. Public Knowledge and others urged the court to hold that the Java application programming interface “is uncopyrightable, in accordance with longstanding tradition, industry practice, and common sense.” PK's brief included the R Street Institute and the Niskanen Center. Functional aspects of Oracle’s code are “not copyrightable, and even if they were, employing them to create new computer code falls under fair use protections,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Successful software development requires platform [single sign-on] compatibility,” said a group that included Mozilla, MapBox, Etsy and Wikimedia Foundation. Prior court decisions dictate that “copying incidental to software reverse engineering does not infringe copyright,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association. Google copied “less than 0.5% of the Java application programming interface into Android to make it easier for Java programmers to write apps for Android smartphones,” CCIA said, saying interoperability is key to innovation and success, including Oracle’s success. Oracle previously noted that half of Google’s petition had been rejected, while the other half doesn't "even purport to present a circuit conflict." The top court rejected review of whether Oracle’s creative computer code is copyrightable in 2015, that company wrote. It didn't comment now.