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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what would happen if they try the Supreme Court now.
Well they can't really 'try' the Supreme Court - the Court has to decide to take up the case. Oracle can't demand that they do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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…
Now we have to hope this doesn't get overturned by a Circuit judge like it did before. Still, this is excellent news.
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…
"Under the first of the four § 107 factors, "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature ... ," the enquiry focuses on whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation, or whether and to what extent it is "transformative," altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message. The more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use. "
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. 510 U.S. 569 (1994)
Whew, Oracle's lawyers and blind greed doesn't get to destroy interoperability for the entire Tech Industry. But the fact that Oracle could get this close and spin deceit to a non-technical Jury to decide whether using API declarations from an OSS code-base would in some universe entitle them to a $9B payday, is frightening.
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!
The problem, however, is that the current fair means test in the US code probably never envisioned something like an API. Arguably, there should be a means test along the lines of "Exists primarily to provide a means of interacting with other copyrighted works" or something along those lines.
Essentially, the interfaces shouldn't be copyrightable argument is an outgrowth of the fact that, if they aren't copyrightable, the fair use protections around compatibility etc. (e.g. in Lotus v. Borland) aren't as strong as one might like.
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.
(see the cite to campbell v. acuff rose, etc)
In fact, the precise argument y'all seem to make is disassembled in that case, because it's what the original court of appeals decision was in that case :
"The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the commercial nature of the parody rendered it presumptively unfair under the first of four factors relevant under § 107; that, by taking the "heart" of the original and making it the "heart" of a new work, 2 Live Crew had, qualitatively, taken too much under the third § 107 factor; and that market harm for purposes of the fourth § 107 factor had been established by a presumption attaching to commercial uses."
They also explicitly said: " The statutory examples of permissible uses provide only general guidance. The four statutory factors are to be explored and weighed together in light of copyright's purpose of promoting science and the arts. Pp. 574-578."