Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court found in favour of Google, ending a decade long legal IP battle. This case has been of particular interest and significance in the tech sector and is likely to set a precedent for the use of APIs in the future.
So, what happened?
In brief, the case is centred around an allegation by Oracle, an American multinational computer technology corporation, that Java’s application programming interfaces (APIs) and about 11,000 lines of source code had been copied by Google and used in Android technology. Oracle sought $9billion worth of damages.
What led to the allegations of copycat technology?
By way of background, Oracle began developing the technology in December 1990, with its subsidiary branch at Sun Microsystems and it was made available to the public in 1995. However, Sun retained control over its technology by doing the following: while anyone could program in the language itself, Sun maintained the Java Platform, Standard Edition and Mobile Edition libraries, provided to users as pre-compiled Java bytecode.
Android, founded in 2003, was bought by Google Inc. in 2005. During the development of the Android technology, Google wanted to incorporate the Java libraries and so, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt approached Sun’s president Jonathan I. Schwartz in a bid for licensing the libraries for use in Android. Sun offered a licensing deal of between $30 and 50 million.
The deal failed for two primary reasons. Firstly, Sun had asked for some shared control of Android which Google was not willing to offer. Secondly, Sun was also concerned that Google planned to essentially fork Java into a Google version of the language and to prevent it from being interoperable with other versions. In software engineering, “fork” is when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it.
What happened next is that Google developed a cleanroom version of Java technologies. They did not have access to Sun’s source code and developed an entirely new version from scratch.
The Case:
The first phase of the biggest programming copyright Supreme Court case in history began in 2010 when Oracle sued Google for copyright and patenting infringement in the District Court for the Northern District of California. In this instance, Judge William Alsop split the case into three phases: copyright, patent, and damages.
The copyright phase began in April 2012 and consisted of several distinct claims of infringement. Oracle alleged infringement of 37 separate Java APIs. The issue which arose was not whether Google had infringed on the copyright, the jury found in favour of Oracle/Sun. The question was whether such technologies were within fair use, i.e., an American legal doctrine that permits the use of copyrighted material without first having to acquire permission from the copyright holder. The courts were deadlocked on this aspect and the jury was split.
The patent phase began in May 2012 with the same jury. The jury found non-infringement on all claims. The damages phase therefore could not go ahead because of the rulings in both the copyright and patent phase.
Over the next few years, the companies made a series of appeals through the various courts. The courts found themselves divided on whether the use of the technologies fell within fair use before ultimately ruling in Oracle’s favour. However, Google appealed to the Supreme Court in 2019 to challenge the previous rulings.
The Final Judgement: the Supreme Court
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 lower courts’ ruling. While they ultimately ruled the APIs copyrightable, Google had the right to their use at the time. Google successfully argued that they are to be used in the way that an alphabet or grammar is to be used; they are fundamental tools in the development of computer programmes.
However, there is another element worth considering. It is possible that the ruling was not made entirely for the reasons stated. Oracle has stated that the ruling happened in Google’s favour because of the monopoly it holds over the tech industry – ruling in favour of Oracle could have had major global implications. Justice Stephen Breyer, in his written opinion, said that “to allow enforcement of Oracle’s copyright here would risk harm to the public”.
What does this mean for the future of software engineering?
As above, this case is likely to set a precedent on APIs. While it does not rule out that APIs are copyrightable, it may suggest that APIs are to fall under the doctrine of fair use, meaning that developers cannot stop other developers from using their APIs. This could have interesting implications on the technology sector and whether there is any real protection or remedy for theft and copying.
The other side of the coin, however, is that it could encourage and promote creativity and innovation. This is because developers can pick and choose fellow developers APIs and run with them, meaning that technological innovation is boundless.
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