A Supreme Court has exonerated Google in a copyright infringement case – Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., 18-956 against Oracle. In the ruling, Google’s use of about 11,500 lines of Java code in its Android development already copyrighted as part of Oracle’s Java platform was termed fair use by the Judge.
The ruling brought about a sigh of relief as Microsoft and IBM who were in the same boat as Google sided with Google with briefs, shared that a pro-infringement ruling could have damning consequences for the software development ecosystem.
The Judge, Stephen Breyer, settled that the code implemented was boilerplate code and Google only used as much as was needed, he also expressed that the copying was transformative and not verbatim.
The case which had been ongoing for a decade eventually settled at the facts that indeed, Oracle’s intellectual property is indeed copyrightable, however, Google’s use of it was fair.
Both organizations legal team expressed their dissenting opinions on the rulings as below:
“The Google platform just got bigger and market power greater. The barriers to entry higher and the ability to compete lower. They stole Java and spent a decade litigating as only a monopolist can,”
Oracle’s chief legal officer, Dorian Daley
“Victory for consumers, interoperability, and computer science.” “The decision gives legal certainty to the next generation of developers whose new products and services will benefit consumers,”
Google’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker