High Court ends with Google in copyright disputes with Oracle

(Reuters) – The US Supreme Court handed over a major victory to Alphabet Inc.'s Google on Monday, ruling that its use of Oracle Corps software code to build the Android operating system running most of the world's smartphones did not violate federal copyright law.

In a 6-2 decision, the judges overturned a lower court ruling that found that Google's introduction of Oracle's software code into Android did not constitute a fair use under U.S. copyright law. , writes for the majority, saying that allowing Oracle to enforce copyright on its code would harm the public by making it a "lock that restricts future creativity in new applications. Oracle alone would hold the key."

Oracle and Google, two California-based tech giants with total annual revenues of more than $ 1

75 billion have been at odds since Oracle sued in 2010 for a copyright infringement in San Francisco federal court.] sought more than $ 8 billion, but renewed estimates went as high as $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, as well as how it is organized, to create Android and reap billions of dollars in revenue. for which developers have created millions of applications, now operates more than 70% of the world's mobile devices. [19659002] Google said that it did not copy a computer program but rather used parts of Java software code needed to run a computer program or platform. The federal copyright law not only protects "operating practices." Google lost twice at the Federal Circuit. In 2014, the appellate court overturned a federal judge's decision that Oracle's interfaces could not be copyrighted. The Supreme Court in 2015 rejected an earlier appeal by Google in the case.

A jury cleared Google in 2016, but the Federal Circuit overturned the 2018 decision and found that Google's incorporation of parts of Oracle's "application programming interface" was not allowed. under the so-called fair use doctrine of the 1976 Copyright Act and rejected Google's argument that by adapting them to a mobile platform, they turned them into something new.

Both companies and their supporters claimed that a decision against them would harm innovation. Google said the shortcut commands it copied to Android help developers write applications to work across platforms, a key to software innovation and the information age, while Oracle said developers would not create new software knowing it would simply be stolen.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not take part in the decision because she had not yet joined the court when oral arguments were held on 7 October

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