Oracle wins suit against Google over Java APIs

Oracle won an important legal battle against Google yesterday with a US appeals court deciding Oracle could copyright parts of the Java programming language, which Google used to design its Android smartphone operating system.

The case, decided by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, was being closely followed in Silicon Valley. A high-profile 2012 trial featured testimony from Oracle's chief executive, Larry Ellison, and Google CEO Larry Page, as the legal issues threw light on how tech companies protected their most valuable intellectual property.

Google was sued over its Android operating system, which is the top selling smartphone platform in 2010. The operating system, according to Oracle, used parts of Java. Oracle had claimed roughly $1 billion on the alleged copyright infringement.

A San Francisco federal judge had ruled that Oracle could not claim copyright protection on parts of Java, which now stood reversed by the three-judge Federal Circuit panel.

"We conclude that a set of commands to instruct a computer to carry out desired operations may contain expression that is eligible for copyright protection," Federal Circuit judge Kathleen O'Malley wrote.

According to Pamela Samuelson, a professor at University of California, Berkeley, School of Law who wrote a brief supporting Google in the case, the Federal Circuit's decision meant software companies now faced uncertainty in determining how to write interoperable computer programs that did not violate copyright.

Under the ruling Oracle was entitled to protect its Java APIs under copyright law, reviving the company's copyright case against Google and raising questions about the cost of software interoperability.

Oracle said in a statement: "We are extremely pleased that the Federal Circuit denied Google's attempt to drastically limit copyright protection for computer code," said Dorian Daley, Oracle general counsel, in an email.

"The Federal Circuit's opinion is a win for Oracle and the entire software industry that relies on copyright protection to fuel innovation and ensure that developers are rewarded for their breakthroughs. We are confident that the district court will appropriately apply the fair use doctrine on remand, which is not intended to protect naked commercial exploitation of copyrighted material."

Google however, did not say how it would proceed and voicing displeasure with the ruling, claimed the ruling set a damaging precedent for computer science and software.