Megatron v. Googlezilla

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Megatron v. Googlezilla


If you have even a passing interest in IP litigation or Internet logjams, you’ll no doubt have heard about the pitched battle between Oracle and Google over Android, Google’s mobile operating system. Earlier this week, a jury in the Northern District of California found that Google violated copyright laws when it used Java APIs to design Android—but could not reach a resolution on whether Google’s use of APIs constituted fair use. (Click here for a peek at the verdict, courtesy of ArsTechnica).

While it is as–of–yet unclear what the result of the “incomplete” verdict will be, adding more fuel to the fire, the presiding judge has yet to rule on whether APIs even can be copyrighted under U.S. law (asking the jury to assume that they could be). As reported by CBS, the prediction is that Judge Alsup will rule that they are not.

The trial was set to proceed in three phases, with the copyright morass constituting only the first wave. Next up is the patent stage—whether Google has infringed two Java–related patents—followed by a trial on damages.

Given the ubiquity of APIs, or application programming interfaces (a specification for allowing software components to communicate with each other), the consequences for Internet and open source development may reverberate throughout the lifetime of a copyright—long enough to render such technology obsolete.

Posted by Stacy Stitham

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