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This battle is very important: two questions it will answer are these: 1. Are APIs copyrightable? 2. If APIs are copyrightable, does providing an alternative

by avz 11y ago

This battle is very important: two questions it will answer are these: 1. Are APIs copyrightable? 2. If APIs are copyrightable, does providing an alternative implementation of someone else's API (the way Android provided an alternative implementation for some of the standard Java APIs) constitute a fair use [1]? Google and Oracle settling this out of court would be very bad news: it would leave the above issues in limbo. That is a lot of legal uncertainty for any project that may wish to provide an alternative implementation of someone else's API. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use EDIT: formatting

tzs 11y ago
That issue is going to be in limbo even if they don't settle out of court, unless the Supreme Court eventually takes the case (or Congress steps in and modifies copyright law to clarify this). That's because this case is both a patent case and a copyright case, and that messes up the normal appeals path. Copyright precedent in the 9th Circuit is set by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and by the Supreme Court, and that is also the normal appeals path from the district courts in the 9th Circuit. When a case involves patents the appeals path is to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and then to the Supreme Court. CAFC rulings on patent issues set precedent for all district courts. Not so for CAFC rulings on copyright issues. 9th Circuit district courts, for instance, considering API copyrights in the future will continue to look to what the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has said on this. What the CAFC has said is no more binding on them than what the 5th Circuit or the 7th Circuit or any other non-9th Circuit, non-Supreme Court court has said. This is a pretty messed up situation. When CAFC gets something like a copyright issue that comes along for the ride on a patent issue, they are supposed to follow the precedent of the circuit from whence the case came on that non-patent issue. If they botch that, there is nowhere to appeal to except the Supreme Court. But since the CAFC ruling on the non-patent issue won't be binding on anyone except the parties in that one case, it is not likely that the Supreme Court will take the appeal. Eventually, the issue will arise again in that same district, but without being attached to a patent case, and then can be appealed to the Court of Appeals for that circuit where they can clarify what the correct interpretation is in their circuit.
wcummings 11y ago
>So the only reason why you may object is that my lisp.a has an INTERFACE that allows it to be linked to libreadline.a . As far as I know, only the readline CODE is copyrighted, not its INTERFACE. (Would you object because my libnoreadline.a has a similar interface?) http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...
- avz 11y ago
  This is very interesting and highly relevant! Thanks!

by avz 11y ago

tzs 11y ago

That issue is going to be in limbo even if they don't settle out of court, unless the Supreme Court eventually takes the case (or Congress steps in and modifies copyright law to clarify this). That's because this case is both a patent case and a copyright case, and that messes up the normal appeals path. Copyright precedent in the 9th Circuit is set by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and by the Supreme Court, and that is also the normal appeals path from the district courts in the 9th Circuit. When a case involves patents the appeals path is to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and then to the Supreme Court. CAFC rulings on patent issues set precedent for all district courts. Not so for CAFC rulings on copyright issues. 9th Circuit district courts, for instance, considering API copyrights in the future will continue to look to what the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has said on this. What the CAFC has said is no more binding on them than what the 5th Circuit or the 7th Circuit or any other non-9th Circuit, non-Supreme Court court has said. This is a pretty messed up situation. When CAFC gets something like a copyright issue that comes along for the ride on a patent issue, they are supposed to follow the precedent of the circuit from whence the case came on that non-patent issue. If they botch that, there is nowhere to appeal to except the Supreme Court. But since the CAFC ruling on the non-patent issue won't be binding on anyone except the parties in that one case, it is not likely that the Supreme Court will take the appeal. Eventually, the issue will arise again in that same district, but without being attached to a patent case, and then can be appealed to the Court of Appeals for that circuit where they can clarify what the correct interpretation is in their circuit.

wcummings 11y ago

>So the only reason why you may object is that my lisp.a has an INTERFACE that allows it to be linked to libreadline.a . As far as I know, only the readline CODE is copyrighted, not its INTERFACE. (Would you object because my libnoreadline.a has a similar interface?) http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...

avz 11y ago
This is very interesting and highly relevant! Thanks!