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Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

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Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#51

Post by bradleyjg »

theptip wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

Agreed, it sounds like by the letter of the law Google's use was not "fair use", if you grant the assumption that APIs are copyrightable in the first place. What recourse does Oracle have now? Didn't the Supreme Court decline to take this issue up last time round? Does that mean this case is closed?

As Rayiner mentions, first they'll be a post-trial motion to vacate or overrule the jury verdict. Regardless of how those motions are decided the losing side will appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Only after a Ninth Circuit panel and perhaps en banc panel rules will one side or the other try for a cert petition to the Supreme Court.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#52

Post by cm3 »

So, APIs are still thought as copyright'able and that was a different trial, right?

Now Google was ruled okay to use that single, small function, or what was this about?

A little more info would be nice for those who aren't following this closely.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#53

Post by rincebrain »

pfg wrote: post #37
pavpanchekha wrote: post #23

This is possibly my best-case scenario. APIs are copywriteable (so says the Supreme Court), and this seems reasonable, since some APIs really are very good and treating them like an artistic work has benefits. But implementing them is fair use, preserving the utility of APIs for compatibility. Great news!

> APIs are copywriteable (so says the Supreme Court) My understanding is that they refused to hear the case at the time. Is that, legally speaking, the same thing as agreeing with the circuit court, or could they have just refused to hear the case for some other reason (e.g. because they wanted to see the ruling on fair use first)?

It is not the same as agreeing with the lower court - AIUI if they heard it and ruled, the scope of the decision for purposes of precedent would be* "every court" (though not necessarily every case), while declining to hear it does not change the scope or outcome of the prior ruling.

* - as with everything in the legal system, there are exceptions and fuzzy lines, and IANAL.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#54

Post by jdmichal »

technofiend wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

>Oracle's strategy going forward, both in post-trial motions and in any subsequent appeal, will be based on arguing that no jury could have applied these factors to the undisputed facts of the case and concluded that the fair use test was met. Didn't a jury just do exactly that? I realize Oracle must have an opinion contrary to the ruling else what's the point of an appeal, but will that really be the line of attack?…

> We don't like the outcome, therefore we question whether the jury knew what they were doing?

Actually, that's pretty much exactly it. An appellate court is capable of ruling a jury finding as contrary to the weight of evidence. It's basically a mistrial ruling -- that the jury did not perform as required -- and therefore permits a retrial. It's a pretty rare occurrence, though.

EDIT: This seems to be a good review:

http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/04/articles/trial/con...

Specifically: "Rather, the role of the trial judge is to determine that notwithstanding all the facts, certain facts are so clearly of greater weight that to ignore them or to give them equal weight with all the facts is to deny justice."

So, the basic argument from Oracle could go something like, "The jury did not properly weight the fact that the copy was performed for commercial reasons and therefore cannot be fair use."

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#55

Post by dctoedt »

bradleyjg wrote: post #51
theptip wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it sounds like by the letter of the law Google's use was not "fair use", if you grant the assumption that APIs are copyrightable in the first place. What recourse does Oracle have now? Didn't the Supreme Court decline to take this issue up last time round? Does that mean this case is closed?

As Rayiner mentions, first they'll be a post-trial motion to vacate or overrule the jury verdict. Regardless of how those motions are decided the losing side will appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Only after a Ninth Circuit panel and perhaps en banc panel rules will one side or the other try for a cert petition to the Supreme Court.

I wonder whether this time the appeal will go to the Ninth Circuit, or whether instead it will return to the Federal Circuit?

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#56

Post by curt15 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #51
theptip wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it sounds like by the letter of the law Google's use was not "fair use", if you grant the assumption that APIs are copyrightable in the first place. What recourse does Oracle have now? Didn't the Supreme Court decline to take this issue up last time round? Does that mean this case is closed?

As Rayiner mentions, first they'll be a post-trial motion to vacate or overrule the jury verdict. Regardless of how those motions are decided the losing side will appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Only after a Ninth Circuit panel and perhaps en banc panel rules will one side or the other try for a cert petition to the Supreme Court.

Since Oracle hasn't dropped its patent claims from the complaint (despite the fact that they've already been defeated), doesn't Oracle get to bypass the 9th circuit and vault the case back to the CAFC?

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

As I see it, only factor 1 clearly weights against Google at all; the other factor you think applied presumably is #4, but Android gaining market is irrelevant to that. The value of or market for Java shrinking compared to what it would otherwise be is what factor 4 is about, and while Oracle no doubt argued this point, it's certainly not indisputable.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#58

Post by farcical_tinpot »

rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

It wasn't even really a case (like say, Samba) where copying was necessary to interoperate with a closed, proprietary system.

Samba never copied anything.

The interoperability argument was simple. Google wanted to use a language that was familiar to most and where developers could take existing code and port trivially. There are developer tools on the market that have done that for decades.

Davlik isn't drop-in compatible with the JVM anyway.

Oracle were never going to get away with that crap argument. To say that had Google copied all the APIs and created a compatible JVM that would have constituted fair use is laughable frankly.

Sun also open sourced Java which doesn't help them at all, and Oracle somewhat pathetically tried to backtrack on that.

That makes Oracle's win on the subject matter issue basically a pyrrhic victory for anyone looking to protect their APIs. They're protectable, but can't be protected in any realistic scenario.

The only sensible outcome. Had Oracle won we would have had years of court action in the developer software tools market until someone saw sense and simply ruled fair use in all cases. That may still happen.

And if you're in the camp that believes APIs should not be protected, this precedent--if it stands--means that you'll have to shoulder the expense of going to trial on the fair use issue before winning on the merits.

We'll have to get to a point where if court action is raised then it will automatically have to be thrown out. You can copyright APIs, but you can't tell others how they should be used.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#59

Post by magicalist »

rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

> If API's are copyrightable

> And if you're in the camp that believes APIs should not be protected, this precedent--if it stands--means that you'll have to shoulder the expense of going to trial on the fair use issue before winning on the merits.

worth remembering that since that decision was made by the Federal Circuit, it has no bearing on the rest of the court system when it comes to copyright. There is no place where "APIs are copyrightable" is binding precedent.

Any lawsuits that don't end up in the Federal Circuit (which pure copyright suits never do) will have to start from "are APIs copyrightable?" before having to make any sort of fair use defense.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#60

Post by [deleted] »

dctoedt wrote: post #41
rayiner wrote: post #12

These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107): (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential…

As to factor number 1, the purpose and character of the infringing use: In the 2 Live Crew / Pretty Woman case, the Supreme Court held that just because an infringing use is commercial, that doesn't automatically mean it's unfair (although it is indeed an important factor). [0] As to factor number 2, the nature of the copyrighted work: For the last 20 years or so, courts have been backing away from the expansive appr…

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