who was the attorney in the oracle v google case

by Ava Daugherty Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago 10 min read

attorney Thomas Goldstein

How did the Supreme Court decide the Oracle v Google case?

Apr 05, 2021 · Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Alito joins, dissenting. Oracle spent years developing a programming library that successfully attracted software developers, thus enhancing the value of Oracle’s products. 1 Google sought a license to use the library in Android, the operating system it was developing for mobile phones. But when the companies could not …

Who was the Supreme Court justice who sided with Oracle America?

Oct 07, 2020 · Oracle's attorney, Joshua Rosenkranz, countered that Google did have options that did not involve using Oracle's code, albeit expensive ones.

Why did Oracle sue Google in 2010?

Apr 05, 2021 · In a statement, Oracle reiterated its allegation that Google "stole" Java and used its economic dominance to fight a protracted legal battle. …

Did Google steal Java from Oracle?

Jan 07, 2022 · Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe partner Annette Hurst, a lead attorney for Oracle in its battle with Google, is here as well, staking out something of a middle ground for amici curiae Oracle and The...

Who won the lawsuit between Google and Oracle?

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court handed Alphabet Inc's Google a major victory on Monday, ruling that its use of Oracle Corp's software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones did not violate federal copyright law.Apr 5, 2021

Who represented Google in Supreme Court?

“But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use." Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion in favor of Google, was joined by Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.Apr 5, 2021

Who sued Google for copyright infringement?

OracleOracle, another tech titan, had sued Google in 2010 for copyright infringement over what it said was copied computer code. Android is now used in an estimated 70% of global smartphones, and damages could have run into the billions.Apr 5, 2021

What exactly did Google copy from Oracle?

Oracle v. In this case, Google copied 37 Java API packages and wrote its own implementation code underlying those API packages for use by developers on its Android operating system.Aug 11, 2021

Is Oracle owned by Google?

Oracle CorporationCurrent headquarters in Austin, TexasOwnerLarry Ellison (42.4%)Number of employees132,000 (2021)SubsidiariesList of Oracle subsidiariesWebsitewww.oracle.com17 more rows

What code did Google steal from Oracle?

Oracle Perspective: Google's Android 'Cheat Code' was to Copy Oracle's Code. “Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act does not create any new standards by which creative expression should be denied copyright protection.Aug 5, 2020

Has anyone won a case against Google?

Google Inc. is a case in which the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved a stipulated order for a permanent injunction and a $22.5 million civil penalty judgment, the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ever historically won.

What happened in Google vs Oracle?

Oracle Copyright Decision. In 2005, Google acquired Android and, to allow programmers to work with Java, copied about 11,500 lines of code pertaining to the Java API. ... Oracle sued Google for copying this API code, arguing that in doing so, Google violated Oracle's copyright.Apr 14, 2021

Is Oracle being sued?

Oracle this month filed a lawsuit against Envisage Technologies, claiming the Bloomington, Indiana-based IT firm has been violating its copyrights by running Oracle Database on Amazon Web Services in an improper way.May 17, 2021

Who won Art vs Google?

Jury Finds Non-Infringement for Google in Art+Com Mapping Patent Suit. A Delaware jury has returned a verdict of non-infringement for Alphabet (Google) in an lawsuit brought by Art+Com Innovationpool GmbH (1:14-cv-00217) over a single mapping patent (RE44,550).

When did Oracle vs Google start?

Oracle sued Google in 2010. In May 2012, Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California ruled that APIs are not subject to copyright.

Who owned Java?

Oracle CorporationOracle Corporation is the current owner of the official implementation of the Java SE platform, following their acquisition of Sun Microsystems on January 27, 2010.

What is fair use in Google?

At the outset, Google argues that “fair use” is a question for a jury to decide; here the jury decided the question in Google’s favor; and we should limit our review to determining whether “substantial evidence” justified the jury’s decision. The Federal Circuit disagreed. It thought that the “fair use” question was a mixed question of fact and law; that reviewing courts should appropriately defer to the jury’s findings of underlying facts; but that the ultimate question whether those facts showed a “fair use” is a legal question for judges to decide de novo.

How many lines of code did Google copy?

To allow the millions of programmers familiar with the Java programming language to work with its new Android platform, Google copied roughly 11,500 lines of code from the Java SE program. The copied lines are part of a tool called an Application Programming Interface (API).

What is Java.lang?

The symbols java.lang., for example, are part of the command that will call up the program (whether written by Sun or, as here, by Google) that instructs the computer to carry out the “larger number” operation. Oracle does not here argue that the use of these commands by programmers itself violates its copyrights.

What is copied code?

The copied lines of code are part of a “user interface” that provides a way for programmers to access prewritten computer code through the use of simple commands. As a result, this code is different from many other types of code, such as the code that actually instructs the computer to execute a task.

Who owns the copyright to Java SE?

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal circuit. No. 18–956. Argued October 7, 2020—Decided April 5, 2021. Oracle America, Inc., owns a copyright in Java SE, a computer platform that uses the popular Java computer programming language.

What is the purpose of copyright and patents?

Copyright and patents, the Constitution says, are to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Art. I, §8, cl. 8. Copyright statutes and case law have made clear that copyright has practical objectives. It grants an author an exclusive right to produce his work (sometimes for a hundred years or more), not as a special reward, but in order to encourage the production of works that others might reproduce more cheaply. At the same time, copyright has negative features. Protection can raise prices to consumers. It can impose special costs, such as the cost of contacting owners to obtain reproduction permission. And the

What is the Sun Java API?

The Sun Java API is a “user interface.” It provides a way through which users (here the programmers) can “manipulate and control” task-performing computer programs “via a series of menu commands.” Lotus Development Corp., 49 F. 3d, at 809. The API reflects Sun’s division of possible tasks that a computer might perform into a set of actual tasks that certain kinds of computers actually will perform. Sun decided, for example, that its API would call up a task that compares one integer with another to see which is the larger. Sun’s API (to our knowledge) will not call up the task of determining which great Arabic scholar decided to use Arabic numerals (rather than Roman numerals) to perform that “larger integer” task. No one claims that the decisions about what counts as a task are themselves copyrightable—although one might argue about decisions as to how to label and organize such tasks ( e.g., the decision to name a certain task “max” or to place it in a class called “Math.” Cf. Baker v. Selden, 101 U. S. 99 (1880) ).

When will the Supreme Court be in 2020?

The U.S. Supreme Court stands in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Oracle Corp. Things got technical at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments from Google and Oracle in a blockbuster copyright dispute that has captivated Silicon Valley for a decade.

Did Google win the Supreme Court case?

Google won twice before a district court in California, but both of those decisions were later reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the case last term before it was delayed, along with a set of other cases, as a result of the pandemic.

Is Oracle code copyrightable?

In their dissent, Thomas and Alito argued that assuming the code is copyrightable for argument's sake and skipping to a fair-use analysis "distorts" the outcome. "Oracle's code at issue here is copyrightable, and Google's use of that copyrighted code was anything but fair," the justices argued.

Did Google copyright Oracle?

The Supreme Court has handed Google a win in a decade-old case in software development, holding that the technology giant did not commit copyright infringement against Oracle when it copied snippets of programming language to build its Android operating system.

What is Oracle suing Google for?

Oracle America sued Google for patent and copyright infringement based on Google’s use of Oracle’s Java API in its Android software in the Northern District of California. The case first focused on whether the Java APIs in question were protected under copyright, which in May 2014, the Federal Circuit held that they were. The case was heard again in the Northern District of California, but this time on Google’s claims that its use was fair use. In May 2016, a jury found in favor of Google, holding that its use of Oracle’s Java API was fair use. Oracle filed a motion to challenge the verdict, which the district court denied in June 2016.

What court case did Oracle appeal?

Oracle appealed to the Federal Circuit on the adverse fair use ruling and Google cross-appealed to preserve the claim that the Java APIs were not copyrightable. In March 2018, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s decision and remanded for a trial on damages. The Court weighed the first and fourth factor heavily in favor of Oracle, ...

What is copyright protection?

1. Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface. 2. Whether, as the jury found, petitioner’s use of a software interface in the context of creating a new computer program constitutes fair use.

When is the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday scheduled an October date to hear oral arguments in the long-running copyright dispute between Google and Oracle over development of the Android mobile operating system.

Who is Ken Glueck?

Ken Glueck, Oracle’s executive vice president who leads government lobbying efforts, in a February blog post accused Walker, Google’s top lawyer, of strong-arming some entities to support its position that it didn’t commit copyright infringement.

Did Google use Java?

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief claiming Google’s use of Java “harmed the market” for Oracle’s work, and the U.S. Solicitor General is also backing Oracle’s claim of code theft. Google argues “it was entitled to copy 11,330 lines of respondent’s declaring code because that code standing alone is not commercially valuable,” ...

Is Java copyrighted?

The complex case has raged on since 2010. In an earlier phase, a federal judge ruled that Java's APIs couldn't be copyrighted at all, absolving Google of any liability before the case was even presented to a jury. A circuit judge then reversed the lower court and sent the case back for trial, where a jury found in favor of Google.

Is Google suing Oracle?

The case was remanded by the circuit court back to a lower court for a trial just to establish how much Google owes Oracle for the infringement. But in January of 2019, Google again petitioned the nation's highest court to help settle the long-running dispute.

Overview

Supreme Court

Google filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United Statesin January 2019 to challenge the two rulings that were made by the appeals court in Oracle's favor. In its petition, Google centered its case on whether copyright extends to a software interface like an API, and whether the use of the Java API by Google fell within fair use as found at the jury trials. In o…

Background

Java was originally developed at Sun Microsystems starting in December 1990. It included a new programming language, a virtual machine, and a set of libraries for use with the language. These libraries are documented for programmers via application programming interfaces(APIs), which tell programmers what information to provide to library functions and what results to expect back, eliminating any need for the programmer to know how the library they are using does what it do…

First phase: API copyrightability and patents

The first phase of the case lasted from 2010 to 2015. Oracle successfully established that APIs are copyrightable, but their claims of patent infringement were rejected. Google petitioned the Supreme Court in October 2014 to review the case, but this was denied.
On August 13, 2010, Oracle sued Google for copyright and patent infringement in the District Court for the Northern District of California. Oracle asserted Google was aware that they had develope…

= Second District Court trial

As ordered by the Appeals Court, a new district court trial began on May 9, 2016, on the question of whether Google's actions were fair usegiven the prior ruling that the APIs were copyrightable. Closing arguments were completed on May 23, 2016 and the jury began deliberations. Oracle was seeking damages of up to US$9 billion. On May 26, 2016, the jury found that Android did not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs was protected …

Impact

Google v. Oracle was a closely watched case by the tech industry. A ruling favoring Oracle could have had significant effects on past and future software development given the prolific use of APIs. Opponents of the Federal Circuit's ruling, including Google and other developers of Android-based software, had raised several concerns including the impact on interoperability, software innovation, and the potential for bad actors to pick up the rights to old software and file claims a…

External links

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