Oracle and Google, two California-based technology giants with combined annual revenues of more than $ 175 billion, sued Oracle in 2010 in San Francisco federal court for copyright infringement.
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The US Supreme Court on Monday handed Alphabet Inc.’s Google a major victory, ruling that using Oracle Corp.’s software code to build Android operating systems that run most of the world’s smartphones does not violate federal copyright law .
In a 6-2 ruling, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that found Google’s inclusion in Oracle’s software code in Android was not a fair use under US copyright law.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that allowing Oracle to enforce a copyright on its code would make the public “a lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle would hold the key alone.”
Oracle and Google, two California-based technology giants with combined annual revenues of more than $ 175 billion, sued Oracle in 2010 in San Francisco federal court for copyright infringement. Google had appealed for the Federal Circuit in Washington to revive a 2018 ruling by the US Court of Appeals.
The ruling Google ruled a potentially massive loss. Oracle was seeking more than $ 8 billion, but it was estimated afresh that it rose as high as $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs, Google called the win for consumers and computers a computer interoperability.
“The decision gives legal certainty to the next generation of developers whose new products and services will benefit consumers,” Walker said.
Oracle’s lawsuit led Google to copy its Java software to 11,330 lines of computer code, as well as how to organize it, causing Android and billions of dollars in revenue. Android, for which developers have created millions of applications, now empowers over 70% of the world’s mobile devices.
Google has stated that it has not copied computer programs, but has used elements of Java’s software code to operate computer programs or platforms. Federal copyright law does not protect only “methods of operation”.
The companies also disputed whether Google had properly used Oracle’s software code, making it permissible under copyright law.
Oracle executive vice president and General Counsel Dorian Daly said the ruling “got the Google platform just bigger and more market power” with the ruling and “higher entry barriers and less ability to compete.”
“They steal Java and have been litigating for only a decade as a monopolist. This behavior is actually being investigated by Google and business practices by regulatory authorities around the world and the United States,” Daly said.
The biggest challenge to Big Tech’s power and influence in decades, the Justice Department on October 20 accused Google of making a big attack on rivals for illegally using its $ 1 trillion company to use its market muscle.
Shares of Oracle and Alphabet gained 3.6% in afternoon trade.
‘Anything but fair’
In Monday’s decision, Breyer wrote, “Google’s imitation was transformational,” adding that the company rebuilt Oracle’s code in a way that helps developers build programs.
The ruling questioned whether Oracle’s code was entitled to copyright protection.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, said that the court should find that Oracle’s work entitled itself to copyright and that Google’s use was “anything but reasonable.”
Noting that Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. did not resort to copying like Google to create mobile operating systems, Thomas said the ruling would hurt competition.
If “companies can now mimic libraries declaring code independently, whenever it is more convenient than their own writing, others will probably hesitate to spend resources that Oracle is intuitive, Had to create well-organized libraries that attract programmers and can compete with Android, ”Thomas wrote.
The case has been whipped from the beginning, with Google twice defeated in the federal circuit. In 2014, that appeals court overturned a federal judge’s ruling that Oracle’s interface could not be copyrighted. In 2015, the Supreme Court quashed Google’s appeal in the case.
Google was approved by a jury in 2016, but the Federal Circuit overturned that ruling in 2018, finding that Google’s permission to include elements of Oracle’s “application programming interface” allowed the so-called fair use of the 1976 Act Was not given under the doctrine, which defies Google’s argument. That by adapting them to a mobile platform it transformed them into something new.
Justice Amy Connie Barrett did not participate in the verdict. She had not yet joined the court when the debate took place on 7 October.
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