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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#501

Post by ScottBurson »

grellas wrote: post #355

Appellate courts do not lightly overturn jury verdicts using highly fact-specific reviews of evidence. There is a reason they call a jury a "trier of fact". There is a reason for this: if it were the rule that an appellate court could easily step in and second-guess how a jury weighs evidence, there would be little room for finality with jury verdicts because lawyers are very skilled (and become very tiresome) endles…

If anyone wants more background on where the Federal Circuit came from and why it has caused so many problems, check this out: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appe...

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#502

Post by caf »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #283
macspoofing wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you oppose copyright on all software, i. e. source code, as well? That has nothing to do with anything. Copyright is a human construct. Somethings are decided to be copyrightable and somethings are not. Not every creative endeavor should be copyrighted, other should, and other should with major limitations. APIs were never copyrightable. Ever. The computing and programming industry developed with this assumption…

My point is that there should be some criteria that determine if something should fall under copyright. And I'm having a hard time finding such a set that contains source code but does not include a (sufficiently extensive) API. You're just asserting tradition. Yet you are not addressing my examples that directly show precedent within the industry for recognising copyright for APIs.

As I undestand it, there is a principle that legal contracts themselves cannot be copyrighted, despite the fact that they might well be the result of a considerable amount of creative work. The underlying principle here is that the legal effect itself cannot be subject to exclusive ownership, and the only way to get the same legal effect is to have the same contract.

I believe APIs can be considered under an analogous principle - that is, the ability to interoperate with a set of existing code shouldn't be subject to exclusive ownership, and you can't interoperate with the same existing code without implementing the same API, so APIs should not be copyrightable. (This draws a distinction between the API itself and the underlying implementation of that API).

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#503

Post by qaq »

geodel wrote: post #393
qaq wrote: post #9

I bet Larry and Sergey are thinking we should have bought SUN.

Why? At worst Google will pay a couple billion for losing API suit. Oracle's patent suit already went down the tube. And by the time Oracle wins Java will be even less relevant for both Google and Oracle. Considering Oracle's Java business is sinking. They already threw away JavaEE to Eclipse and Cloud infra is heading Go way. So instead of being hobbled by Sun JDK design decisions they worked on Dalvik and Java like…

Patents/IP rights. Very strong team of eng. a lot of cool tech.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#504

Post by ScottBurson »

ABCLAW wrote: post #175

It may be helpful for readers to look at the actual meat and potatoes of the decision itself. I recommend jumping in at Page 27 of the decision so that they can see how the fair use factors were evaluated in this case: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or... Fair use has four factors, lets see how it shook out: 1) Purpose and Character: Google tried to argue that because android is free that i…

> You guys who think patents that slap "but use a computer to do it" onto the end of some existing process are bad? Google's trying to say the same thing per computer form factor.

This is ridiculous. An argument supporting a fair use defense in a copyright proceeding is a very different thing from a patentability argument. Google is not trying to claim patent rights to its Android API.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#505

Post by Ajedi32 »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #462
Ajedi32 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I don't really see what the difference is. In both cases Google would end up with exactly the same API specification. There's no room for them to come up with an "original" API, because if the API they end up with is not an _exact copy_ of Oracle's, then software written for Oracle's Java implementation would not be compatible with Google's Java implementation (and vice-versa).

So? The proper response would have been for Google to either pay the license or develop their own write once use anywhere software. Instead, the took the shortcut of copying someone's hard work.

By that logic WINE shouldn't be allowed to exist either, since it copies Windows' API.

Copying APIs is strictly necessary for interoperability. Allowing APIs to be copyrightable encourages monopolies by legally prohibiting newcomers' software from being compatible with their competition.

It'd be like if Microsoft were allowed to sue Google Docs and Libreoffice for making their software able to open Word documents. (Except in this case the "documents" are source code.)

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#506

Post by chii »

icebraining wrote: post #415
treis wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you're not getting it. Copyright means I can't copy your work. If I arrive independently at the same thing, then I didn't copy your work and therefore didn't violate your copyright. If I take your picture of a building and copy that's a copyright violation. If I take a picture of a building from the exact same angle you did, that's not a copyright violation.

That's true, but if you type and distribute a book that happens to match the latest Harry Potter, nobody - including the courts - will believe you independently came up with that exact sequence of words. Similarly, if you copy the definitions of all functions/methods/classes/etc from one API, nobody will believe you independently came up with it.

Even if the methods and functions are so basic as to not have variations?

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#507

Post by chii »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #462
Ajedi32 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I don't really see what the difference is. In both cases Google would end up with exactly the same API specification. There's no room for them to come up with an "original" API, because if the API they end up with is not an _exact copy_ of Oracle's, then software written for Oracle's Java implementation would not be compatible with Google's Java implementation (and vice-versa).

So? The proper response would have been for Google to either pay the license or develop their own write once use anywhere software. Instead, the took the shortcut of copying someone's hard work.

Interoperability trumps copyright IMHO.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#508

Post by qaq »

geodel wrote: post #393
qaq wrote: post #9

I bet Larry and Sergey are thinking we should have bought SUN.

Why? At worst Google will pay a couple billion for losing API suit. Oracle's patent suit already went down the tube. And by the time Oracle wins Java will be even less relevant for both Google and Oracle. Considering Oracle's Java business is sinking. They already threw away JavaEE to Eclipse and Cloud infra is heading Go way. So instead of being hobbled by Sun JDK design decisions they worked on Dalvik and Java like…

and Sun's campus is now prob worth most of the original sales price.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#509

Post by chii »

treis wrote: post #428
MertsA wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is an API different than any other product specification? Why can't e.g. Panasonic sue other manufacturers for making an 18650 form factor battery cell? Why can't Ford license the form factor that every car uses for a gas nozzle? There's fundamentally not a way to create your own compatible implementation without using the same API.

Panasonic and Ford own copyrights on their CAD drawings for those items. So I can't just CTRL C and CTRL V and send them off to a manufacturer to get my own stuff made. I can, however, measure those things and create my own drawings without violating copyright because I am not reproducing the work.

So google could've looked at all existing Java source code, and infer the api? But the resulting output is indistinguishable from just copying.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#510

Post by curt15 »

jgh wrote: post #317
jandrese wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If API are copyrightable how do clean room implementations work? It seems IBM could sue the clone makers for the BIOS API if that's the case.

Does that mean all the cloud providers who are copying S3's API for object storage are violating some copyright?

After all, the sole purpose of such reimplementations would be to take business away from Amazon.
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