The decade long legal battles between Oracle and Google over software rights has recently reached the Supreme Court. The battle in the court has major implications between two of the Silicon Valley giants.
For those unaware, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case, which was first filed by Oracle back in 2010. At the moment, Oracle was seeking billions from Google over the user of its Java programming language in its Android mobile operating system. Since then, two separate jury trials ended with both rulings going in favor of Google, stating that the “software interface” has not unfairly used Java code.
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However, an appeals court in 2018 disagreed with these rulings and stated that the software interface is entitled to copyright protection, which has led Google to seek out the top court in the US. Oracle had acquired the rights to Java back when it had also bought Sun Microsystems, which had supported Google’s use of Java for Android. The company then sought $9 billion in damages in the original complaint.
On the other hand, Google and other Silicon Valley allies have said that extending copyright protection to bits of code, called application programming interfaces, or APIs would threaten innovation in the digital era, according to a Gadgets360 report. As per the search engine giant, Oracle’s win would “upend the longstanding expectation of software developers that they are free to use existing computer software interfaces to build new programs.”
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