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This has already happened to an extent. For example, there are bunch of API compatible implementations of s3, both oss and proprietary and most of them suggest you use the AWS sdk as a client.
Including, amusingly enough, Oracle: https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Object/Task...
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaSDK/latest/javadoc/com/am...
I'm not sure why so many people here seem to be surprised by this, I got the exact same impression from the hearing. The problem for Google on the copyrightability front is that "compilations" of non-copyrightable items can be copyrightable even if the underlying items themselves are not, if the "selection, coordination, or arrangement" of those items involves sufficient creativity to be considered an "original work…
I think the CEO of Sun knew this.. "Google's lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun." "'No,' Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software. 'These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people...we wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people as possible.'" https://www.cnet.com/news/former-sun-…
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I think the CEO of Sun knew this.. "Google's lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun." "'No,' Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software. 'These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people...we wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people as possible.'" https://www.cnet.com/news/former-sun-…
Whether it’s copyrightable or not is a legal question, and Schwartz isn’t a lawyer. And the answer has to be the same for everyone, not just Sun. Now, that might be an “implied license” or “estoppel” argument—even if it’s copyrightable, you can’t enforce it now because you led everyone to believe they could use it for free.
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SQL is an ISO standard. IBM would only have grounds if any part of Oracle's implementation implemented a proprietary portion of an IBM database implementation. This is the positive thing about standards, it removes ambiguity around what people can/should implement and present to users of the systems.
Also note that even for established patents, a ton of standards standardized patented technology, and implementing the standard requires a patent license! This is a huge part of how Qualcomm makes its patent revenue from 3G/4G implementors.
It is absurd that "judges" should be in the position to judge issues which they have no understanding of. I would bet that at least some of the members of the Supreme Court do not even know how to check and send email. In the same way they depend on others to perform basic and advanced computer tasks, they should depend on a "jury" of tech experts to filter the cases and provide suggestions or hopefully reasonable an…
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I think the playbook is just a bad analogy because it misses that point of what an interface is. It's the means of connecting two dissimilar mechanisms. A translation layer. I'd have argued it's more like copyrighting doorknob placement (opposite hinge, at hand height) and operation (twisting) on doors vs. patenting a novel mechanism inside the doorknob. A football playbook is more like the blueprints of the inside o…
I think the QWERTY analogy quoted in the article is perfect. QWERTY is on typewriters, computers, and smartphones. Same interface, completely different implementations. And this is technology that everyday people are familiar with.
As far as I can see (but please note that I am not even in the US, never mind a legal scholar) the relevant US law is 37 CFR § 202.1 about “Material not subject to copyright” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/202.1). This enumerates several cases that are explicitly excluded from copyright protection. One is “typeface as typeface”, which was apparently interpreted as described above in a litigated case (Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer).
An argument has certainly been made, though I can’t immediately find the original source, that this exclusion is justified because of the utilitarian nature of a typeface design: allowing one party to control all use of it would be against the public interest, because ultimately that principle could allow for all printed communication to become controlled.
It seems to me that APIs fulfil a similar purpose. They are not useful in themselves, lacking a corresponding implementation. They are, however, an essential basis for standardisation, interoperability and communication between practitioners.
Under 202.1(b) of the law cited above, another class of works excluded from copyright protection is “Ideas, plans, methods, systems, or devices, as distinguished from the particular manner in which they are expressed or described in a writing”. I wonder whether a similar argument about the utilitarian nature of APIs as a specification distinct from its implementation could be made based on that.
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Not at all. Please read page 14 of the amicus curiae brief in support of Google by Microsoft ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/128381/2020... ). Here is the relevant paragraph: """ In another example from the 1990s, an open-source developer created a program called WINE, which al- lowed developers to enable Windows applications to run on computers that used the Linux open-source system, without expli…
Companies don't bother with principled consistency, and so I wouldn't expect any from Microsoft if this goes Oracle's way. It's totally possible that Microsoft thinks APIs being non-copyrightable is good for them on net, but that if SCOTUS decides otherwise that they might as well go crush WINE anyway since they now have the means.
It is absurd that "judges" should be in the position to judge issues which they have no understanding of. I would bet that at least some of the members of the Supreme Court do not even know how to check and send email. In the same way they depend on others to perform basic and advanced computer tasks, they should depend on a "jury" of tech experts to filter the cases and provide suggestions or hopefully reasonable an…
Maybe we get lucky and the SCOTUS ruling comes down against uncopyable API's. But while that seems questionable at the moment, it's important to remember one thing: there is always an "out" even in the "nuclear option" case and that is "have Congress change the law". It seems to me that now is the time to start thinking about putting together a mass effort to get Congress to change copyright law, to establish clearly…
Microsoft also supported Google in this case.