101–110 of 409 posts
Seriously, I think this is a good verdict. I think that Oracle has been doing a good job sheparding Java, but this law suit really seemed to me to be too much of a money grab.
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Good point about factor #4. But (in light of dragonwriter's comment below): wasn't Sun making a play at getting JVM into peoples' phones before Android stole their thunder? Or am I misremembering the timing?
Phones have had Java since 2001.
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> 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…
> Any lawsuits that don't end up in the Federal Circuit (which pure copyright suits never do) [...] It seems (based on this case) that you could make that happen by simply throwing in a patent claim, even if you'd get defeated on that point (which happened to Oracle). Not sure if that's a general rule one could exploit, or something that just happened in this case?
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…
Given the fact that Java is open source and was open sourced in 2006, how does Oracle have a case? I'm asking legitimately not understanding how this even has a leg to stand on.
See, as ever, Florian Mueller for a... different perspective: http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/oracle-v-google-jury-find...
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) The Supreme Court denying cert is not an endorsement of a ruling. No precedent is set. They could completely disagree with the lower court's ruling but not take the case for any number of reasons: there's no split between circuits, so they want to let other opinions develop before taking on a subject, they don't believe the case details are a good test case for the…
It's still possible that the Supreme Court could take this case and Oracle might go back to losing on copyrightability rendering fair use moot.
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 anyone is curious to see a summary of Oracle's claims to Google's copying not being fair use, the slides for their closing arguments are available at Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/how-oracle-made-i... Disclaimer: I work for Oracle, though not on Java.
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They've got post-verdict motions at the trial court, if that fails they can speak to the Circuit Court (I think this will go to the Ninth Circuit now rather than the Federal Circuit, but that may be incorrect.) If they fail their, they can petition to have the Supreme Court take up the case (their refusal to take up a different question in an interlocutory -- prior to final judgement -- appeal previously shouldn't be…
> I think this will go to the Ninth Circuit now rather than the Federal Circuit, but that may be incorrect. Sadly, it won't. Ars Technica has Oracle's general counsel saying "we plan to bring this case back to the Federal Circuit on appeal"
I wish Gunn v. Minton had been more expansive.
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!
If other countries follow USSC's lead in declaring APIs as copyrightable, many of which have far looser fair use rights than the US, then this could create a lot of headaches, especially since this seems like a very loose interpretation of the US's already loose fair-use laws.