On one hand I feel APIs are an important asset for any business. Platforms and programs can literally succeed or fail because of how their APIs are designed. Pe

On one hand I feel APIs are an important asset for any business. Platforms and programs can literally succeed or fail because of how their APIs are designed. Personally, I've spent as much as 1/3rd of my time on some projects in just thinking about APIs and go through dozens of iterations. If someone then copies verbatim, I would certainly feel getting robbed. On the other hand, APIs has to be public and copiable for people to do things like mocks or wrappers. Also, re-implementation is what allows progress and competition. It doesn't seem like a good thing for society for APIs as uncopiable without royalty. It looks like we are literally here on the edge of reasoning trying to argue if the border of your house is also your property. These are the kind of philosophy-heavy cases SC should definitely spend time on.