That's the argument that always springs to mind for me, as well, and I'm curious why Google's lawyers haven't used it since it seems obvious. (That's the whole

That's the argument that always springs to mind for me, as well, and I'm curious why Google's lawyers haven't used it since it seems obvious. (That's the whole point of this, after all: we're implementing an agreed-upon interface that application developers are using. Implementing an interface happens all the time outside of computers and is not a difficult concept to turn into shitty car metaphors if you really must). So, the interface is published in every consuming application. If you look at an application which is missing a shared object and figure out how to implement the missing pieces in your own version of that shared object, you've re-implemented (part of) an API. So the question is, in doing so, have you infringed their copyright?