Good Enough For Patent Law, Good Enough For Copyright Law…

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Good Enough For Patent Law, Good Enough For Copyright Law…


  • Google copies Java’s method headers in its API for Android.
  • Java’s creator, Sun Microsystems, is purchased by Oracle.
  • Oracle sues Google for copyright infringement.

(Admit it. That last bit didn’t surprise you).

  • The district court finds that the API method headers aren’t protectable under copyright.
  • The Federal Circuit reverses—Java API taxonomy is copyrightable as a whole.
  • And now…Google seeks review by the Supreme Court.

We are intrigued by the idea of copyrighting software, which may be an appealing idea as patent reform rolls on. Indeed, as hinted by Google in its cert petition, copyrighting software may serve as a way around the Court’s recent efforts to curb the ability to patent software:

Just last Term, this Court confirmed that, while some software–related patent claims may be eligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. § 101, many are not. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014). Like Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act, Section 101 of the Patent Act protects future innovation by preventing anyone from “ ‘inhibit[ing] further discovery by improperly tying up the future use of’ the[] building blocks of human ingenuity.”

Extending copyright protection to methods and systems of operation would undermine the limits on patent protection.

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