Oracle v. Google - Judge Alsup Rules APIs Not Protected By Copyright

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120531172522459

by mbreese • 14 years ago

735 141 14 years ago

groklaw.net

rhizome• 14 years ago

Ralph Yarro is bummed.

Nogwater• 14 years ago

Update: Grocklaw now links directly to the PDF: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf

Someone linked to this in the groklaw comments: http://www.scribd.com/zdnetrachel/d/95477548-Oracle-v-Google...

I assume this is legit.

mmastrac• 14 years ago

"So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different. When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and no one can monopolize that expression. And, while the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law."

Cyranix• 14 years ago

Yep, that's the juicy excerpt. Other bits that I found salient from the ruling, on patent vs. copyright:

    Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the 
    design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of 
    course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a
    new output can be creative, even inventive, including the
    choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is
    true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and
    functionality level — are protectable only under the 
    Patent Act.

    ...

    That a system or method of operation has thousands of 
    commands arranged in a creative taxonomy does not change 
    its character as a method of operation. Yes, it is 
    creative. Yes, it is original. Yes, it resembles a 
    taxonomy. But it is nevertheless a command structure, a 
    system or method of operation — a long hierarchy of over 
    six thousand commands to carry out pre-assigned functions. 
    For that reason, it cannot receive copyright protection — 
    patent protection perhaps — but not copyright protection.

The entirety of p. 38, on interoperability and fragmentation, is also a good read.

newhouseb• 14 years ago

Does this mean that companies will start to patent their APIs? I wonder if this means we should expect virtually the same case s/copyright/patents/g a few years in the future.

spullara• 14 years ago

How does this effect the GPL? Is this no longer something that the GPL can restrict?

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL

atamyrat• 14 years ago

I suppose linking to a library is quite different case than re-implementing it with the same interface.

geon• 14 years ago

> re-implementing it with the same interface.

That is, after all, what the GNU project was created for.

ajross3• 14 years ago

No, it's a different issue. When you take a GPL (not LGPL) library (not an API, an actual piece of software) and "use it", you're creating a derivative work of that library. The only way to license such a work is under the GPL. Because if you don't, you don't get a license to use the library (not the API, the software) under copyright law. But it's the copyright on the software that is the teeth here. In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code. Anyone who wants to ship useful software needs to abide by the copyright of the software they use.

What Google (really Harmony) did is mere cloning. They (very) expressly didn't use Java the software, only the "Java API".

perlgeek2• 14 years ago

> In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code.

It's not useless. Your customers can compile it, and link it to the GPLed library. After all the GPL allows you absolute freedom of use, as long as you don't distribute the derivative work.

chc2• 14 years ago

The GPL never forbade creating a nonfree library with the same interface as a free one.

jrockway• 14 years ago

That's my reading too, though I remember someone who wrote a MySQL API layer that was not libmysql was accused of violating the GPL. Amusingly, MySQL is now an Oracle product (though I'm not sure it was at the time).

chimeracoder3• 14 years ago

Which is, incidentally, not too far from how GNU/Linux came to be - a free OS with the same interface as a nonfree[1] one.

[1] AT&T was legally required to provide the source code of its OS 'for free', I'm not sure if the terms actually qualify as 'free-as-in-freedom', hence the impetus to create an alternative implementation.

dllthomas2• 14 years ago

This posts siblings are correct - the GPL can forbid linking because it is a condition of you being able to use the library. Reimplementation of a GPL library to be distributed under different terms is certainly permitted, and has happened (see readline).

derekp7• 14 years ago

So if you code against a GPL library, but don't distribute that GPL library with your code, are you still bound by the GPL? According to the GPL license itself, it seems so, as long as there is not other library that implements with the same interface. But what part of copyright law makes this possible?

ubernostrum2• 14 years ago

There is still some debate -- and this case didn't touch it -- over linking and derivative works. Static linking pretty clearly involves something that requires a license from the copyright holder, but dynamic linking is far from clear. The GPL basically asserts that dynamic linking makes a derivative work, but there's no guarantee that this is how copyright law would actually be interpreted by a court.

mbreese2• 14 years ago

Sanity prevails when you have a judge who can also code...

indiecore• 14 years ago

A sudden outbreak of sanity!

ajuc• 14 years ago

Let's hope it's addictive.

barrynolan• 14 years ago

Who is he referring to here? " For those who have depended on the self-described patent expert for your understanding of this case . . . well, maybe now you will know better than to trust a paid spokesman." FOSS Patents?

mintplant• 14 years ago

I would assume so.

shmerl• 14 years ago

Probably.

parfe• 14 years ago

Mueller's likely cooking up another article of baked shit right now. He will write about how Oracle actually won this case (even with all the verdicts and judgements going against them), so it was actually bad for Google.

I guarantee he posts an article tomorrow lamenting how Google will only face more lawsuits like this and they won't luck out with an "incompetent" judge and google-loving jury next time. He has been so off the mark with every article he's written on this case he's got to have zero personal pride in his work.

It's a shame people go to him for information. He's a poison in the software community.

kierank• 14 years ago

He makes valid points about abuse of the FRAND patent system.

ajross3• 14 years ago

So, now that the recrimination phase of the trial has begun: where did Oracle go wrong? I mean, at this point they've lost everything and it's abundantly clear that Sun would have been better off just blessing whatever Google wanted to do as "Java". At the very least, they'd have gotten some branding karma and been able to sell an "Official Android Pro SDK" product or whatever.

But at what point was that clear? Who missed that call?

marshray6• 14 years ago

I think Oracle bought Sun, at least in part, thinking they could do a better job monetizing Java than Sun had done.

That's where they went wrong.

sounds2• 14 years ago

I have to agree.

Oracle's only possible course in purchasing Sun was litigation. (And I think most expected nothing less from Larry Ellison.)

Google seemed like a vulnerable target.

Alsup was a spanner in Ellison's plan. It could be argued that Google's legal defense was another.

brd• 14 years ago

Food for thought: SAP had been going down the path of being a dual stack company, using both Java and ABAP. The Java side was being invested in to provide better (i.e. more modern) integration capabilities and Oracle's acquisition of Sun succeeded in getting SAP to take a step back on this strategy.

forgotAgain• 14 years ago

If that's true then I would expect them to reduce their future investment in developing Java.

magicalist• 14 years ago

Well, I got the distinct impression (though it may be colored by hindsight and the journalists it was filtered through), that Oracle originally thought the patent portion of the case contained the real offenses, with the copyright arguments more limited (and restricted to just code copying, which I recall they were fairly vague with at first, implying many more instances of direct copying than there was).

It was only as the patents were knocked off one by one that the copyright portion of the suit became their major complaint and what they were pinning expectations and their hopes to.

bad_user• 14 years ago

No, Oracle was betting more on copyright, because copyright protections are much stronger than patents. Here are some big differences:

(1) copyright lasts longer

(2) copyright infringement is easier to prove

(3) in most cases having the copyright of something is indisputable

On the other hand patents ...

(1) are often discovered to be invalid (many "inventions" are unpatentable)

(2) the monopoly lasts for only 20 years and in this industry most worthwhile things have been invented before the nineties

(3) there are huge amounts of prior art

(4) patent infringement is hard to prove

If anything, this is really great news, because if Oracle could claim the copyright-ability of Java APIs, then our industry would never be the same.

metamatt2• 14 years ago

Just my opinion:

Sun probably knew that at the time but due to hubris didn't want to admit it, so they just willingly looked the other way and kept doing what they were doing. So you get Jonathan Schwartz, in 2007, wishing that Google would take a license, but begrudgingly congratulating them anyway, but not doing the "Official Android Pro SDK" thing you suggest. (http://web.archive.org/web/20101023072550/http://blogs.sun.c...). So that was a small mistake, a missed opportunity, but life went on.

Then at some point (maybe even before they purchased Sun, maybe after?), Oracle decided to waaay up the stakes with this lawsuit. Given how it's turned out, I'd call that a much bigger mistake.

So it was probably a little clear even to Sun in 2007 that alienating Google was the wrong call but/so they decided not to do anything about it, and then Oracle, well, I don't know whether it's correct to characterize this as missing a call vs intentionally taking a big risk in hopes of a big reward.

Steko• 14 years ago

This is really a huge win for Google not just against Oracle but for Larry Page and Schmidt who made the ballsy call here and in general to remake many standards instead of licensing.

DigitalSea• 14 years ago

A judge making a rational and fair decision? Seems to be happening a lot lately, maybe the world is ending. Needless to say as a programmer this makes me incredibly happy, if the judge ruled API's are copyrightable, then there would have been a lot of sore bums as a result. I have a feeling if the judge didn't know how to code, the result could have been marginally different.

krschultz4• 14 years ago

We as a community live and breath computers all day. When SOPA is put in front of us, we immediately know it is wrong. When you talk about the idea of copyrighting an API, we pretty much instantly were against it. And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers (not to open that can of worms here, but just as a point).

Whethers its judges, politicians, companies, or public opinion overall, it can take years for the viewpoint of the 'experts' to become mainstream. We look at this stuff 24/7, most other people are thinking about it with 1% of their time.

I don't think its just us either, if you dive into a community of people focused on medicine or energy, they are 5 years ahead of you and I as well. It just takes a long time to percolate outwards from the experts to the laymen.

ghshephard• 14 years ago

" And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers"

I was with you up to that point. I think you would find that the majority of HN doesn't have a lot of sympathy for those who would distribute other people's creative works in violation of said creator's copyrights.

After all, the same thing that protects authors rights in the GPL underly the rights belonging to the creators of "Game of Thrones".

Let's not stretch something that 95%+ of us agree on (You should't be able to copyright an API) into a place where there isn't consensus.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

"I have a feeling if the judge didn't know how to code, the result could have been marginally different."

When people tell me about how the sky is falling because of software patents I remind them that in 1995 when the patent frenzy kicked off exactly zero federal judges had the kind of exposure to computers that would be required to ajudicate these issues. This became pretty obvious during the Microsoft Anti-trust trial as technical witnesses struggled to explain the ramifications of what 'bundling' did. And the problem extends throughout the system since these things get appealed etc.

So 15 years later, we start getting Federal judges who know a bit about computers (and Alsup knows more than many) and that leads to rulings that are a lot more reasonable.

Part of the 'pain' we feel is that the world change rate is faster than the institution adaption rate, however institutions that are designed to adapt do, and we are starting to see the benefit of that. In another 15 years these judges from today will be filling appellate and circuit court seats, even supreme court seats. And then it will be very difficult indeed to claim that using a laser pointer to amuse a cat is novel or patentable.

fpp2• 14 years ago

This is definitively a relief for our whole industry.

Thanks to Judge Alsup for taking an impartial stand on the whole matter and for the commitment to enable himself to an understanding of the matter and an informed decision going as far as to even learn himself how to program in Java.

I hope this does not remain one of the few cases when knowledge, ethics and the law is applied in its true sense while billions are brought to the battlefield.

Maybe all those that think that "rounded corners", sending email messages/calendar entries from mobile devices or different shades of gray are true inventions will one day soon rethink their monopoly strategies and start again with what they were once great at - actually create and invent things that people want to use.

jasomill3• 14 years ago

While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, the "rounded corners" claim was that the specific corner shape was an ornamental as opposed to useful part of the iPad's design. Design patents and utility patents aren't even close to the same thing.

fpp2• 14 years ago

And you are of course right, but - I believe - what is important here is that for keeping our legal systems functional it is necessary to actively limit the opportunities to abuse it

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

The key element of both (all) types of patents is that, rather than "protecting" your property, they actually allow you to prevent others from independently inventing or designing the same thing by giving you a legal monopoly. In that regard using the law to prevent someone having rounded corners on a handheld device isn't too different from preventing them having a touchscreen device that you unlock by swiping.

sounds2• 14 years ago

We've seen invention companies turn into patent trolls. The latest example - a shell company built around the Nortel patents - is a classic case. A telecom company, where it should be easy to sell inventions to upper management, went bankrupt by refusing to innovate. (I know there are other reasons Nortel is dead, I apologize for the simplification.)

I don't believe anyone has ever seen a patent troll "turn from the dark side." It's not just cynicism: a company whose business plan is "aggressively pursue patent licenses" has a fiduciary responsibility to stakeholders to stay the course. It's easier to drive a company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy than convince a majority of stakeholders to unite, pivot, and abandon their cash cow.

The easiest way to defeat patent trolls is to succeed as a startup.

DannoHung• 14 years ago

Anyone else hearing the Ewok victory song in their head?

heretohelp• 14 years ago

Yeeeep

luminaobscura• 14 years ago

"For example, Java-based code using the replicated parts of the 37 API packages will run on Android but will not if a 38th package is needed. Such imperfect interoperability leads to a “fragmentation” — a Balkanization — of platforms, a circumstance which Sun and Oracle have tried to curb via their licensing programs. In this litigation, Oracle has made much of this problem, at times almost leaving the impression that if only Google had replicated all 166 Java API packages, Oracle would not have sued."

LOL

esrauch• 14 years ago

Why is that an LOL?

That is exactly why Sun sued Microsoft and won. Microsofts JVM was slightly incompatible with the official one. If Microsoft had replicated all Java API packages, and not added Windows-specific ones then they wouldn't have sued.

One of the big sells of Java has always been "write once, run anywhere", Sun sued Microsoft because their incompatible JVM made that not true anymore. Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work. Not that I think that is a particularly bad thing, since J2ME is a big pile of crap, but it's kind of interesting to see the difference between the perception in favor of Sun then and against Oracle here when the core issue is the same.

orangecat• 14 years ago

Microsoft entered into an contract with Sun specifically agreeing that any Java implementation they shipped would be fully compatible with Sun's version.

Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work.

The large majority of existing Java code and libraries will work on Android without modification.

dminor2• 14 years ago

Great! Now just a few years of appeals and it will all be over...

thoughtsimple• 14 years ago

Don't celebrate too much yet. This is likely to be appealed.

I think the judge did a good job in trying to make sure this decision stands on appeal but until the appeal process is over, this could still turn ugly.

chimeracoder3• 14 years ago

IANAL, but I'm not sure that this is too likely, because of the way that Alsup separated the jury's decision from his own.

Prosecution can't appeal a jury's acquittal; in this case, Alsup's ruling is separated from the jury's decision (remember when he told them to 'assume APIs are copyrightable'), so I'm not sure what the possible courses of legal action are here. This is a subtle point, so I imagine one would have to be a lawyer to answer this one, though I have a suspicion that there may not be a precedent here (or, if there is, it's a weak enough precedent that it could still reasonably go either way).

DannyBee2• 14 years ago

I can't speak very much or about this particular case (because i'm involved), but i can tell you you are confusing civil and criminal law. You are correct that in a criminal case, the government cannot generally appeal a jury acquittal . In a civil case, you can appeal a jury verdict (in practice, I'm being deliberately loose with terminology to make this understandable), the usual method is to file a post-judgement motion for judgement as a matter of law, and then appeal its denial, or appeal the jury instructions, or ...

12bit• 14 years ago

I imagine this has implications for the Cappuccino framework, which uses the Cocoa API with some minor changes (replacing NS with CP).

hannibalhorn• 14 years ago

Kudos to the judge for making the effort to really understand the issues. I'm curious, did WINE ever come up as an example of an alternative API implementation?

I'd actually find that a more interesting case, as it's an alternative implementation of APIs where the creator never even envisioned there being an alternative implementation.

Java, despite what Oracle may say, was always spec'd to a point where alternative implementations were probable, and many JVM improvements started off as proprietary forks/implementations.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

So far as I could tell, WINE was never part of the trial record (i.e. no testimony, exhibits, etc.) so it wouldn't (shouldn't) be referred to in the legal arguments in the trial.

That being said, it would be good to see the WINE project submit an amicus brief (possibly with the help of, for example, the EFF) during the appeals process.

krschultz4• 14 years ago

Reading the ruling is fantastic.

The judge basically puts a CS 101 chapter in to explain some of the basics of Java. I laughed when he used the variable name 'Foo' as an example.

This was one argument that I haven't seen before:

"This brings us to the application programming interface. When Java was first introduced in 1996, the API included eight packages of pre-written programs. At least three of these packages were “core” packages, according to Sun, fundamental to being able to use the Java language at all. These packages were java.lang, java.io, and java.util. As a practical matter, anyone free to use the language itself (as Oracle concedes all are), must also use the three core packages in order to make any worthwhile use of the language. Contrary to Oracle, there is no bright line between the language and the API."

gruseom3• 14 years ago

there is no bright line between the language and the API

This is actually a deep observation about the relationship between languages and libraries: the line between them is fluid and to some extent just a convention.

How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding. Let's hope he has succeeded in appeal-proofing the ruling.

marshray6• 14 years ago

We could even call it "introspection".

Natsu2• 14 years ago

> How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding.

It's been reported that he's done programming before. I had very high hopes based on that and the extensive research he did in preparing for this ruling. He asked for several rounds of briefings and spent a considerable amount of time reaching this decision.

So in a sense it's not that astonishing: he worked really hard to arrive at the correct answer. I'm just glad they got such a capable judge.

einhverfr2• 14 years ago

Think about this for a second. What I heard the judge saying is basically this (and something judges have repeatedly said): Copyright is not a barrier to competition with functionally equivalent products, nor is it a barrier to interoperability of functional software. WINE is not a derivative work of Windows, for example....

Instead copyright (at least in the US) only protects creative expression to the extent it can be separated from function. This means it protects source code in kind of funny ways and with strange boundaries which haven't been as fleshed out as much as one might think. This is important.

It places a lot of the more extremist rhetoric about what the GPL prohibits in doubt too, since by this logic steps that are minimally necessary to interop with a piece of software can never, by themselves, rise to the level of copyright infringement.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I really liked that he added the last bit. It explicitly denied the theory that the language elements that were 'code' in the core packages were part of the same work (language) that is parsed by the lexical analyzer. This is a critically important element of language design.

mtgx• 14 years ago

Oracle should really save themselves the embarrassment and admit the law is not on their side, and they are being just way too greedy trying to get Google to pay for this. But they'll probably take it further anyway...

chii3• 14 years ago

i suspect they've already sunk in enough effort - i m sure they aint' just gonna give up. I just hope that when they do appeal, that they don't somehow manage to get a judge that is incapable of understanding the technical subtlties involved, and ruin everything.

EternalFury3• 14 years ago

Does this set a precedent for all kinds of APIs or just the Java API?

Can I go and implement any commercial API and sell my own implementation without having to pay any fee to the original author of the API?

That would be awesome.

mbreese2• 14 years ago

If you can be sure that the implementation wouldn't be encumbered by a patent, then yes. But, you can't be sure that you still wouldn't get sued. Although, if the API isn't publicly available, I'm not sure it is so clear.

You've always needed to be able to implement APIs in order to have compatibility, so in essence, this decision puts into case-law what what already assumed to be the case.

EternalFury3• 14 years ago

OK, let me clarify.

Let's say a software vendor out there is making a ton of money with a product that exposes a certain API.

Let's say I know a way to implement that API in such a manner that its performance will be improved by an order of magnitude. (without using any patented method in my implementation)

Can I put together that implementation and market it as a competitive product?

In my experience, APIs of commercial products are disclosed under the terms of their licensing agreement. So, one could argue that I cannot market a competitive implementation, if the license terms I agreed to (to gain knowledge of the API itself) prevent me to do so.

zopa2• 14 years ago

It's a trial decision, so it doesn't set a binding precedent at all. You might want to wait for the appeal before starting your scheme.

modeless• 14 years ago

Favorite part: "Oracle has made much of nine lines of code that crept into both Android and Java. This circumstance is so innocuous and overblown by Oracle that the actual facts, as found herein by the judge, will be set forth below for the benefit of the court of appeals."

CUR10US4• 14 years ago

So here's the question: Can you protect a computer language with copyright, e.g. a high level language like a scripting language?

marshray6• 14 years ago

IANAL. Read the ruling. To me it seems to reaffirm the principle that no functional aspect of a system are under copyright. Sun/Oracle's consternation about it's lack of control over Java due to "fragmentation" was even interpreted to support the idea that the aspects of Java that Google copied to develop a compatible system were, in fact, functional.

"Short labels" are out too.

So AFAICT you can't copyright "if ... then", and you can't copyright "if" or "then" either.

Also see the recent case of SAS (a computer language product) in the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_Wor...

saraid216• 14 years ago

I'm fairly sure that languages cannot ever be copyrighted, programming or otherwise.

CUR10US4• 14 years ago

Can the interpreter be protected by copyright? Technically that is a program, not the language.

zmmmmm3• 14 years ago

I think the implications of this case are huge.

Apart from having the non-copyrightability of APIs reaffirmed (hugely important in itself), we're now seeing the whole general broadside of the intellectual property armageddon largely fizzing out. We have huge tech giants throwing whole rafts of patents at each other and seeing time and time again 95% of them dismissed and the remainder get trivially worked around.

Hopefully this starts to change the mentality into one where these companies realize that patents are fairly worthless protection for trivial ideas in the first place and the only way to truly protect yourself is to actually out-innovate and be one step ahead of where the competition is.

roguecoder• 14 years ago

The problem is that threatening to throw those patents at small companies has proven, and will probably continue, to be effective. It doesn't matter whether or not they effectively protect ideas when their true value lies in raising barriers to competition.

zmmmmm3• 14 years ago

True, but I think the effect will even trickle down to smaller cases. That is the benefit of having a clear precedent set. For example when Big Co. now tries to sue Small Co. for implementing their API Small Co. will be able to stand up with much more confidence and tell them to go away. Even if that could have been interpreted from previous legal doctrine, having such a clear and and recent statement on it will bolster anybody in that situation to defend themselves instead of caving.

SquareWheel• 14 years ago

What a great judge. If only the politicians passing tech laws would put in this kind of effort.

chii3• 14 years ago

a judge goes thru some very different education and indoctrinations than a politician would have.

A judge is more difficult to corrupt, and/or bribe with circumstances, because there is no incentive for the judge to favour one or the other. Thus, this is fair.

A politician has plenty of incentive to favour one party over another when creating legislation - after all, who pays for their campaign contributions? He/she/it who pays controls.

zopa2• 14 years ago

As it happens, most trial court judges in the US are elected. See here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/state_...

Judge Alsup is a federal judge, so he's an appointee, not an elected official. But most judges do need campaign donors. It's a problem.

kodeninja• 14 years ago

With this ruling, Judge William "Haskell" Alsup has become a personal hero of mine - a real caped crusader!

Way to go, judge! The wider developer community salutes you.

grellas• 14 years ago

A few thoughts:

1. This is a meticulously researched, marvelously analyzed, and brilliantly synthesized order done by a judge who has a keen grasp of not just the facts of the case but of those that really matter. As the opinion notes, this was a case of "first impression" - meaning that no published decision has ever dealt specifically with the precise question raised of whether APIs in themselves are protectable by copyright or not.

2. The developer community needed a definitive ruling that was almost impossible to arrive at in light of the controlling precedents of the Ninth Circuit (which are binding on the judge). Why? Because (beginning with the Johnson Controls case in 1989) the precedents had held that the "structure, sequence, and organization" (SSO) of any part of a software program were potentially protectable by copyright and that the issues had to be determined case-by-case to determine whether a particular component was or was not protectable. Thus, the best a trial judge can do in such a case is to make a fact-specific conclusion about the case immediately being tried, one which would have limited impact in the next case, where the parties could argue the same issue on different facts. Yet, while doing just that and limiting his ruling to the particular facts before him, Judge Alsup has provided a definitive and logically compelling approach to how such issues are to be decided where they concern APIs and copyright and such reasoning is, in my view, destined to be widely applied throughout the court system going forward. Lower court rulings can have a powerful impact through the sheer force of their reasoning. This is just such a ruling. It is rare to get this. It could not have been better timed on a vital issue affecting interoperability in our modern era.

3. Fundamentally, Oracle had been arguing that the SSO of its 37 API packages reflected creative expression of precisely the type that the Copyright Act was intended to protect. And it is true that API design choices reflect all sorts of creative forms of expression. To deal with this issue, the judge got down to fundamentals, with the key language found at page 35 of the opinion: "Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a new output can be creative, even inventive, including the choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and functionality level — are protectable only under the Patent Act. The Patent and Trademark Office examines such inventions for validity and if the patent is allowed, it lasts for twenty years. Based on a single implementation, Oracle would bypass this entire patent scheme and claim ownership over any and all ways to carry out methods for 95 years — without any vetting by the Copyright Office of the type required for patents. This order holds that, under the Copyright Act, no matter how creative or imaginative a Java method specification may be, the entire world is entitled to use the same method specification (inputs, outputs, parameters) so long as the line-by-line implementations are different" (my emphasis). Thus, even though the judge was forced by Ninth Circuit precedents to assess the SSO based on the particular facts before him only, he did so by finding, as a matter of fact, that only a 3% layer of code dealt with the SSO of the API packages, that this consisted entirely of names that had to be identical for compatibility purposes and of tasks that could be performed in only one way in order to work, and in this way - having established the factual setting as consisting entirely of elements he concluded were unprotectable under copyright - he could make a powerful and sweeping statement of law that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on future cases.

4. The judge finally had to deal with the claim that the SSO constituted a sort of taxonomy that has been held protectable under copyright in other circuit courts. Here, too, he addressed the issue based on fundamentals: assuming that the API design structure here constituted a taxonomy, he nonetheless held that it was above all a command structure that was unprotectable based on 17 U.S.C. section 102(b) (which categorically excludes ideas, concepts, etc. from copyright protection). Thus (at page 39): "In our circuit, the structure, sequence and organization of a computer program may (or may not) qualify as a protectable element depending on the 'particular facts of each case' and always subject to exclusion of unprotectable elements. Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Sys., 886 F.2d 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 1989). Contrary to Oracle, Johnson Controls did not hold that all structure, sequence and organization in all computer programs are within the protection of a copyright." This is another way of saying that what might otherwise constitute protecable expression (e.g., the creative design choices made in developing the SSO of APIs) is nonetheless not protectable if it functionally operates within a computer program as a command structure. This, of course, is what APIs do and this means that his conclusion can be used as a powerful guide in all future API copyright cases. As a trial court decision, this ruling is not binding on other courts, yet it is compelling and persuasive, which can amount to the same thing (including in its impact on the Ninth Circuit when it considers this case on appeal).

5. Oracle here is like the Black Knight in Monty Python: as each limb of this case was lopped off, it dismissively would say "a mere flesh wound." Now that its case has been reduced to a final stump, it can continue to declaim but who will listen? Maybe a long shot on appeal but I wouldn't hold my breath. This is an unbelievable outcome that illustrates that great good can come even from lousy things that people do. The computing world owes a great vote of thanks to Judge Alsup: the cause of interoperability has won a huge victory.

jhund• 14 years ago

Thanks to Judge Alsup for helping the cause of interoperability and thanks to grellas for a great writeup with Monty Python analogy!

gbhn• 14 years ago

seconded

Natsu2• 14 years ago

I remember you saying that this was clearly a judge who did his homework. I'm glad to see that he took his time and came up with the well-reasoned judgement I was hoping for.

Oracle's case has been coming undone for some time now. I couldn't believe the way their expert witness was rebuked in the denial of Oracle's JMOL motion the other day, either. They have, what? One claim for copyright infringement via those test files? I sincerely doubt that even the maximum penalty there would permit them to recoup the cost of this litigation. And I think you've said as much before.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

The statutory penalty for the test files and rangeCheck is $150k per incident or $300k (which is nowhere near the $50 million estimated cost of the litigation for each party to date).

However, Oracle has elected to go after "infringer's profits" instead of taking statutory damages, so it is very possible that they will end up with less. It's very unlikely that they'd end up with more as the judge understands how trivial both parts are (and Oracle and Google have agreed to let him decide damages).

bornhuetter• 14 years ago

Wow, great analysis. Thanks.

scott_s2• 14 years ago

Please seriously consider starting a blog. Even if you post just once every two months, after major rulings, your analysis is always so illuminating. I come into legal threads on HN specifically to read what I know will be your top-rated comment.

gruseom3• 14 years ago

Couldn't agree more, except I like the fact that grellas posts his stuff (which keeps getting better, by the way) as part of community discussions here. It's like one of HN's superpowers. Even though both are completely public, blogs feel more arm's length and isolated, where this is convivial.

duckduckgouser• 14 years ago

I'm so glad to hear this. This is more than a win for developers (almost) everywhere, this is deterrence for large companies that want to bully others with their legal team when almost everyone is saying what their legal team is doing is at best suspect and at worst a travesty.

rwmj• 14 years ago

I like how Florian Mueller manages to spin this[1] as a two year respite for Google who will eventually lose on appeal!

[1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/judge-says-google-only-us...

robomartin• 14 years ago

I can't remember ever having read a legal document that pulled me in as this one most-definitely did. I found it fascinating and educational. Every time I had a question Judge Alsup answered it. In detail. It clarified many points and questions I had about some of my work and upcoming projects where the question of interface vs. expression was surely going to come-up. The other thing it did for me is further clarify the demarcation line between copyright and patent. I had a very good idea, but this document explored edges I didn't know existed.

dctoedt• 14 years ago

Judge Alsup is an outstanding judge, but I would also bet a nickel that one or more of his clerks [1] had experience as a developer before going to law school.

[1] A judicial clerk is a young lawyer, normally just out of law school and generally with a first-rate academic record, hired by a judge to serve for one or two years as a researcher and (often) as an opinion-drafter. ('grellas, for example clerked for Judge Ingraham.) Clerk positions are highly coveted among law students, because they can open doors to jobs in large law firms, the Justice Department, etc. As just one example, Chief Justice John Roberts clerked for then-Associate Justice, later Chief Justice William Rehnquist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk#United_States

Oracle v. Google - Judge Alsup Rules APIs Not Protected By Copyright

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