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A short summary: * Oracle sues Google on copyright grounds. * Case is overseen by Judge Alsup, who taught himself Java in order to understand the technical me

A short summary: * Oracle sues Google on copyright grounds. * Case is overseen by Judge Alsup, who taught himself Java in order to understand the technical merits of the case. Case is split into two phases: copyright and patents. * A jury finds Google to be infringing on copyright, but deadlocks on the fair-use defense. The jury finds Google to be non-infringing on all patents. * Judge Alsup breaks the jury's deadlock on copyright by ruling that APIs are not copyrightable in the first place. * Oracle appeals the patent claim, Google simultaneously appeals the copyright claim (it wasn't 100% in their favor). * The Federal Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) hears the case due to the patent portion. It overturns Alsup's decision, declaring that APIs are in fact copyrightable. It remands the case back down to Judge Alsup. * Google petitions the Supreme Court to hear the case instead, but the Court declines the request. * Judge Alsup oversees a second trial, this time solely on the fair-use merits. * The jury finds that Google's use of the APIs indeed falls under fair use.

wtallis 10y ago
The Federal Circuit isn't the Ninth Circuit, and that's really the whole problem. The Federal Circuit is the special-purpose patent appeals court. For a case like this where they were hearing the appeal because there were patent claims, they are supposed to treat the non-patent issues in the manner of the local circuit (9th). The Federal Circuit has a history of ruling in favor of broader intellectual property rights and being periodically reined in by the Supreme Court. They do it for patents, and when Oracle uses a losing patent claim to get copyright issues before the Federal Circuit, they rule for expanding copyright. If Oracle hadn't included patent claims, the appeal would have gone before the Ninth Circuit and probably lost. The Federal Circuit did a farcical job of applying Ninth Circuit copyright precedent, especially in contrast to the thorough job Alsup did.

wtallis 10y ago

The Federal Circuit isn't the Ninth Circuit, and that's really the whole problem. The Federal Circuit is the special-purpose patent appeals court. For a case like this where they were hearing the appeal because there were patent claims, they are supposed to treat the non-patent issues in the manner of the local circuit (9th). The Federal Circuit has a history of ruling in favor of broader intellectual property rights and being periodically reined in by the Supreme Court. They do it for patents, and when Oracle uses a losing patent claim to get copyright issues before the Federal Circuit, they rule for expanding copyright. If Oracle hadn't included patent claims, the appeal would have gone before the Ninth Circuit and probably lost. The Federal Circuit did a farcical job of applying Ninth Circuit copyright precedent, especially in contrast to the thorough job Alsup did.