The thing is that fair use is a defense to infringement -- so saying this is fair use implies they would have been infringing if not for that factor. "I didn't

The thing is that fair use is a defense to infringement -- so saying this is fair use implies they would have been infringing if not for that factor. "I didn't commit murder at all" doesn't have the same relationship to some hypothetical murder, rather it's claiming there's no link there at all. The analysis does feel like it puts the cart before the horse and possibly ends up implying or easily being argued as implying a statement I think they were trying to avoid opining on absent developments in the lower courts. I get why they would do that, but it doesn't make it less strange and I would worry that this could be analyzed to say, in effect, that APIs should all be subject to copyright. It wouldn't even be the first time a Supreme Court ruling one way on IP had been turned on its head, either. That has happened a lot with software patents, for example.