18 ms·

Oracle v. Google - Judge Alsup Rules APIs Not Protected By Copyright

735 points by mbreese 14y ago

rhizome 14y ago
Ralph Yarro is bummed.
Nogwater 14y ago
Update: Grocklaw now links directly to the PDF: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf Someone linked to this in the groklaw comments: http://www.scribd.com/zdnetrachel/d/95477548-Oracle-v-Google-Order-Regarding-Copyrightability-of-APIs http://www.scribd.com/zdnetrachel/d/95477548-Oracle-v-Google... I assume this is legit.
mmastrac 14y ago
"So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different. When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and no one can monopolize that expression. And, while the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law."
- Cyranix 14y ago
  Yep, that's the juicy excerpt. Other bits that I found salient from the ruling, on patent vs. copyright: Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a new output can be creative, even inventive, including the choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and functionality level — are protectable only under the Patent Act. ... That a system or method of operation has thousands of commands arranged in a creative taxonomy does not change its character as a method of operation. Yes, it is creative. Yes, it is original. Yes, it resembles a taxonomy. But it is nevertheless a command structure, a system or method of operation — a long hierarchy of over six thousand commands to carry out pre-assigned functions. For that reason, it cannot receive copyright protection — patent protection perhaps — but not copyright protection. The entirety of p. 38, on interoperability and fragmentation, is also a good read.
  - newhouseb 14y ago
    Does this mean that companies will start to patent their APIs? I wonder if this means we should expect virtually the same case s/copyright/patents/g a few years in the future.
    - wmf 14y ago
      Patenting of APIs/protocols/file formats has been going on for a while. The bar for patenting an API will be much higher[1] because it has to be a novel concept. [1] In theory. In reality, the USPTO will issue anything.
      - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
        USPTO will issue anything, but the patents rarely survive. In this litigation, all the patents brought out by Oracle were struct down.
        dminor 14y ago
        Actually 2 of them survived until trial (1 still facing further review), but Google was deemed to not be infringing by the jury.
        WildUtah 14y ago
        The judge ordered Oracle to limit themselves to their ten best patents for the case and Oracle chose ten. Google then went to the Patent and Trademark Office to try to get those ten struck down. Two out of ten survived review. Eight were declared to have been mistakenly granted. (One of those is still under appeal.) That rate -- eight out of ten of the very best selection of software patents obviously bogus -- is actually low; many more than eight out of ten are bogus on average, even when only considering the best ones. But that was all Google could get from the PTO. Note that your startup can't just go to the PTO like that when attacked with bogus patents -- it takes years and millions of dollars. Then the trial started with two remaining patents. But they were not the two that survived review. One survived review and was in the trial. One is rejected on review but can still be appealed and also was in the trial. And one was rejected on review and then re-accepted on review appeal, but had still been rejected when Oracle requested an acceleration of the trial date so they had to abandon the claims to get their earlier trial date. The other seven remain rejected.
spullara 14y ago
How does this effect the GPL? Is this no longer something that the GPL can restrict? http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL
- atamyrat 14y ago
  I suppose linking to a library is quite different case than re-implementing it with the same interface.
  - geon 14y ago
    > re-implementing it with the same interface. That is, after all, what the GNU project was created for.
- ajross 14y ago
  No, it's a different issue. When you take a GPL (not LGPL) library (not an API, an actual piece of software) and "use it", you're creating a derivative work of that library. The only way to license such a work is under the GPL. Because if you don't, you don't get a license to use the library (not the API, the software) under copyright law. But it's the copyright on the software that is the teeth here. In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code. Anyone who wants to ship useful software needs to abide by the copyright of the software they use. What Google (really Harmony) did is mere cloning. They (very) expressly didn't use Java the software, only the "Java API".
  - perlgeek 14y ago
    > In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code. It's not useless. Your customers can compile it, and link it to the GPLed library. After all the GPL allows you absolute freedom of use, as long as you don't distribute the derivative work.
    - 14y ago
mbreese 14y ago
Sanity prevails when you have a judge who can also code...
indiecore 14y ago
A sudden outbreak of sanity!
- ajuc 14y ago
  Let's hope it's addictive.
barrynolan 14y ago
Who is he referring to here? " For those who have depended on the self-described patent expert for your understanding of this case . . . well, maybe now you will know better than to trust a paid spokesman." FOSS Patents?
- mintplant 14y ago
  I would assume so.
- shmerl 14y ago
  Probably.
- parfe 14y ago
  Mueller's likely cooking up another article of baked shit right now. He will write about how Oracle actually won this case (even with all the verdicts and judgements going against them), so it was actually bad for Google. I guarantee he posts an article tomorrow lamenting how Google will only face more lawsuits like this and they won't luck out with an "incompetent" judge and google-loving jury next time. He has been so off the mark with every article he's written on this case he's got to have zero personal pride in his work. It's a shame people go to him for information. He's a poison in the software community.
  - kierank 14y ago
    He makes valid points about abuse of the FRAND patent system.
ajross 14y ago
So, now that the recrimination phase of the trial has begun: where did Oracle go wrong? I mean, at this point they've lost everything and it's abundantly clear that Sun would have been better off just blessing whatever Google wanted to do as "Java". At the very least, they'd have gotten some branding karma and been able to sell an "Official Android Pro SDK" product or whatever. But at what point was that clear? Who missed that call?
- marshray 14y ago
  I think Oracle bought Sun, at least in part, thinking they could do a better job monetizing Java than Sun had done. That's where they went wrong.
  - sounds 14y ago
    I have to agree. Oracle's only possible course in purchasing Sun was litigation. (And I think most expected nothing less from Larry Ellison.) Google seemed like a vulnerable target. Alsup was a spanner in Ellison's plan. It could be argued that Google's legal defense was another.
    - marshray 14y ago
      > Oracle's only possible course in purchasing Sun was litigation. To be fair to Oracle (OMG I can't believe I just typed that) it's not clear to me that they realized that at the time. Oracle has a relatively large, locked-in, and well-monetized customer base. They have tools and languages and interefaces too. I imagine that most of the time they don't end up litigating against their customers. Sun had a good customer base and a lot of them were fairly deeply committed to Sun hardware, Solaris, and yes, Java. Often they were running Oracle on Sun hardware and developing database data entry apps in Java. It's possible that they were thinking "There's a good synergy here with the market footprint, opportunity for vertical integration, we both have some server tools, developer tools used by committed/locked-in corporate users. Sun isn't getting any revenue from Java because they're just too much "Mr. Nice Guy". We can fix that, we know how to monetize an app platform in the corporate market. It may also be that I am hopelessly naive and they bought Sun solely as a ticket to sue Google. Edit: See example "Mr. Nice Guy" blog post at http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110723095928839 http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110723095928839 How would an Ellison interpret that?
Steko 14y ago
This is really a huge win for Google not just against Oracle but for Larry Page and Schmidt who made the ballsy call here and in general to remake many standards instead of licensing.
DigitalSea 14y ago
A judge making a rational and fair decision? Seems to be happening a lot lately, maybe the world is ending. Needless to say as a programmer this makes me incredibly happy, if the judge ruled API's are copyrightable, then there would have been a lot of sore bums as a result. I have a feeling if the judge didn't know how to code, the result could have been marginally different.
- krschultz 14y ago
  We as a community live and breath computers all day. When SOPA is put in front of us, we immediately know it is wrong. When you talk about the idea of copyrighting an API, we pretty much instantly were against it. And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers (not to open that can of worms here, but just as a point). Whethers its judges, politicians, companies, or public opinion overall, it can take years for the viewpoint of the 'experts' to become mainstream. We look at this stuff 24/7, most other people are thinking about it with 1% of their time. I don't think its just us either, if you dive into a community of people focused on medicine or energy, they are 5 years ahead of you and I as well. It just takes a long time to percolate outwards from the experts to the laymen.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    " And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers" I was with you up to that point. I think you would find that the majority of HN doesn't have a lot of sympathy for those who would distribute other people's creative works in violation of said creator's copyrights. After all, the same thing that protects authors rights in the GPL underly the rights belonging to the creators of "Game of Thrones". Let's not stretch something that 95%+ of us agree on (You should't be able to copyright an API) into a place where there isn't consensus.
    - koglerjs 14y ago
      I don't know about a majority. This poll, while hardly conclusive, suggests at least a sympathy for the "IP is imaginary!" crowd. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088
fpp 14y ago
This is definitively a relief for our whole industry. Thanks to Judge Alsup for taking an impartial stand on the whole matter and for the commitment to enable himself to an understanding of the matter and an informed decision going as far as to even learn himself how to program in Java. I hope this does not remain one of the few cases when knowledge, ethics and the law is applied in its true sense while billions are brought to the battlefield. Maybe all those that think that "rounded corners", sending email messages/calendar entries from mobile devices or different shades of gray are true inventions will one day soon rethink their monopoly strategies and start again with what they were once great at - actually create and invent things that people want to use.
- jasomill 14y ago
  While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, the "rounded corners" claim was that the specific corner shape was an ornamental as opposed to useful part of the iPad's design. Design patents and utility patents aren't even close to the same thing.
  - fpp 14y ago
    And you are of course right, but - I believe - what is important here is that for keeping our legal systems functional it is necessary to actively limit the opportunities to abuse it
    - jasomill 14y ago
      True. And the main reason for keeping our legal system functional? The belief that alternatives would invite even more abuse!
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    The key element of both (all) types of patents is that, rather than "protecting" your property, they actually allow you to prevent others from independently inventing or designing the same thing by giving you a legal monopoly. In that regard using the law to prevent someone having rounded corners on a handheld device isn't too different from preventing them having a touchscreen device that you unlock by swiping.
DannoHung 14y ago
Anyone else hearing the Ewok victory song in their head?
- heretohelp 14y ago
  Yeeeep
luminaobscura 14y ago
"For example, Java-based code using the replicated parts of the 37 API packages will run on Android but will not if a 38th package is needed. Such imperfect interoperability leads to a “fragmentation” — a Balkanization — of platforms, a circumstance which Sun and Oracle have tried to curb via their licensing programs. In this litigation, Oracle has made much of this problem, at times almost leaving the impression that if only Google had replicated all 166 Java API packages, Oracle would not have sued." LOL
- esrauch 14y ago
  Why is that an LOL? That is exactly why Sun sued Microsoft and won. Microsofts JVM was slightly incompatible with the official one. If Microsoft had replicated all Java API packages, and not added Windows-specific ones then they wouldn't have sued. One of the big sells of Java has always been "write once, run anywhere", Sun sued Microsoft because their incompatible JVM made that not true anymore. Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work. Not that I think that is a particularly bad thing, since J2ME is a big pile of crap, but it's kind of interesting to see the difference between the perception in favor of Sun then and against Oracle here when the core issue is the same.
  - orangecat 14y ago
    Microsoft entered into an contract with Sun specifically agreeing that any Java implementation they shipped would be fully compatible with Sun's version. Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work. The large majority of existing Java code and libraries will work on Android without modification.
    - flomo 14y ago
      The relevant point being that Google didn't want to license Java under the standard terms because they wanted control over the platform, and certainly partially because they saw what happened to Microsoft. It certainly wasn't just the technical matter of reproducing "166 APIs", there was the whole political angle of putting Android under control of Sun/Oracle's committees. (And just on a trivial note, Microsoft eventually created their own 'clean-room' Java called "J#". It died in obscurity, but Google wasn't the first.)
dminor 14y ago
Great! Now just a few years of appeals and it will all be over...
thoughtsimple 14y ago
Don't celebrate too much yet. This is likely to be appealed. I think the judge did a good job in trying to make sure this decision stands on appeal but until the appeal process is over, this could still turn ugly.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  IANAL, but I'm not sure that this is too likely, because of the way that Alsup separated the jury's decision from his own. Prosecution can't appeal a jury's acquittal; in this case, Alsup's ruling is separated from the jury's decision (remember when he told them to 'assume APIs are copyrightable'), so I'm not sure what the possible courses of legal action are here. This is a subtle point, so I imagine one would have to be a lawyer to answer this one, though I have a suspicion that there may not be a precedent here (or, if there is, it's a weak enough precedent that it could still reasonably go either way).
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    I can't speak very much or about this particular case (because i'm involved), but i can tell you you are confusing civil and criminal law. You are correct that in a criminal case, the government cannot generally appeal a jury acquittal . In a civil case, you can appeal a jury verdict (in practice, I'm being deliberately loose with terminology to make this understandable), the usual method is to file a post-judgement motion for judgement as a matter of law, and then appeal its denial, or appeal the jury instructions, or ...
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      I know civil and criminal are different; however, I thought that was the whole point of the special jury instructions (making it impossible/more difficult for his ruling to be overturned on appeal). In any case, I guess we'll see soon....
      - DannyBee 14y ago
        Sadly, I can't comment on the jury instructions except to encourage you to look around at other patent and copyright cases and see if you think they are really all that special or different. I can say it is statistically more difficult to overturn jury verdicts than it is to overturn judge verdicts. On the patent side, you can find interesting but slightly out of date data here: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/04/are-appeals-at-the-federal-circuit-a-coin-flip.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/04/are-appeals-at-the-f... You should be able to figure out which issues are eliminated by having mainly a jury decision on patents instead of a judge decision.
12bit 14y ago
I imagine this has implications for the Cappuccino framework, which uses the Cocoa API with some minor changes (replacing NS with CP).
hannibalhorn 14y ago
Kudos to the judge for making the effort to really understand the issues. I'm curious, did WINE ever come up as an example of an alternative API implementation? I'd actually find that a more interesting case, as it's an alternative implementation of APIs where the creator never even envisioned there being an alternative implementation. Java, despite what Oracle may say, was always spec'd to a point where alternative implementations were probable, and many JVM improvements started off as proprietary forks/implementations.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  So far as I could tell, WINE was never part of the trial record (i.e. no testimony, exhibits, etc.) so it wouldn't (shouldn't) be referred to in the legal arguments in the trial. That being said, it would be good to see the WINE project submit an amicus brief (possibly with the help of, for example, the EFF) during the appeals process.
krschultz 14y ago
Reading the ruling is fantastic. The judge basically puts a CS 101 chapter in to explain some of the basics of Java. I laughed when he used the variable name 'Foo' as an example. This was one argument that I haven't seen before: "This brings us to the application programming interface. When Java was first introduced in 1996, the API included eight packages of pre-written programs. At least three of these packages were “core” packages, according to Sun, fundamental to being able to use the Java language at all. These packages were java.lang, java.io, and java.util. As a practical matter, anyone free to use the language itself (as Oracle concedes all are), must also use the three core packages in order to make any worthwhile use of the language. Contrary to Oracle, there is no bright line between the language and the API."
- gruseom 14y ago
  there is no bright line between the language and the API This is actually a deep observation about the relationship between languages and libraries: the line between them is fluid and to some extent just a convention. How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding. Let's hope he has succeeded in appeal-proofing the ruling.
  - marshray 14y ago
    We could even call it "introspection".
  - Natsu 14y ago
    > How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding. It's been reported that he's done programming before. I had very high hopes based on that and the extensive research he did in preparing for this ruling. He asked for several rounds of briefings and spent a considerable amount of time reaching this decision. So in a sense it's not that astonishing: he worked really hard to arrive at the correct answer. I'm just glad they got such a capable judge.
    - gruseom 14y ago
EternalFury 14y ago
Does this set a precedent for all kinds of APIs or just the Java API? Can I go and implement any commercial API and sell my own implementation without having to pay any fee to the original author of the API? That would be awesome.
- mbreese 14y ago
  If you can be sure that the implementation wouldn't be encumbered by a patent, then yes. But, you can't be sure that you still wouldn't get sued. Although, if the API isn't publicly available, I'm not sure it is so clear. You've always needed to be able to implement APIs in order to have compatibility, so in essence, this decision puts into case-law what what already assumed to be the case.
  - EternalFury 14y ago
    OK, let me clarify. Let's say a software vendor out there is making a ton of money with a product that exposes a certain API. Let's say I know a way to implement that API in such a manner that its performance will be improved by an order of magnitude. (without using any patented method in my implementation) Can I put together that implementation and market it as a competitive product? In my experience, APIs of commercial products are disclosed under the terms of their licensing agreement. So, one could argue that I cannot market a competitive implementation, if the license terms I agreed to (to gain knowledge of the API itself) prevent me to do so.
    - harshreality 14y ago
      If you agreed to a license or NDA prohibiting you from competing, that might be enforceable under contract law, but that is neither related to copyright nor patents. Assuming a case where there's no contract involved, patents are typically what would cause trouble. The original implementor will typically have a patent on some silly thing their software does, and you have to do that thing to make a compatible implementation, so they sue you for violating their patents.
modeless 14y ago
Favorite part: "Oracle has made much of nine lines of code that crept into both Android and Java. This circumstance is so innocuous and overblown by Oracle that the actual facts, as found herein by the judge, will be set forth below for the benefit of the court of appeals."
CUR10US 14y ago
So here's the question: Can you protect a computer language with copyright, e.g. a high level language like a scripting language?
- marshray 14y ago
  IANAL. Read the ruling. To me it seems to reaffirm the principle that no functional aspect of a system are under copyright. Sun/Oracle's consternation about it's lack of control over Java due to "fragmentation" was even interpreted to support the idea that the aspects of Java that Google copied to develop a compatible system were, in fact, functional. "Short labels" are out too. So AFAICT you can't copyright "if ... then", and you can't copyright "if" or "then" either. Also see the recent case of SAS (a computer language product) in the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_World_Programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_Wor...
- saraid216 14y ago
  I'm fairly sure that languages cannot ever be copyrighted, programming or otherwise.
  - CUR10US 14y ago
    Can the interpreter be protected by copyright? Technically that is a program, not the language.
    - caf 14y ago
      Of course. But that doesn't stop anyone from writing their own interpreter that interprets the same language, as long as they don't copy any copyrightable parts of your interpreter to do so. (Such an interpreter would likely contain a table of function names. The effect of this ruling is to clarify that that set of function names can't be copyrighted, so the alternative implementation of your interpreter can copy it. We already knew that the names themselves couldn't be copyrighted, but this ruling clarifies that also the "structure, sequence and organsiation" of those function names can't be copyrighted either.)
zmmmmm 14y ago
I think the implications of this case are huge. Apart from having the non-copyrightability of APIs reaffirmed (hugely important in itself), we're now seeing the whole general broadside of the intellectual property armageddon largely fizzing out. We have huge tech giants throwing whole rafts of patents at each other and seeing time and time again 95% of them dismissed and the remainder get trivially worked around. Hopefully this starts to change the mentality into one where these companies realize that patents are fairly worthless protection for trivial ideas in the first place and the only way to truly protect yourself is to actually out-innovate and be one step ahead of where the competition is.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  The problem is that threatening to throw those patents at small companies has proven, and will probably continue, to be effective. It doesn't matter whether or not they effectively protect ideas when their true value lies in raising barriers to competition.
  - zmmmmm 14y ago
    True, but I think the effect will even trickle down to smaller cases. That is the benefit of having a clear precedent set. For example when Big Co. now tries to sue Small Co. for implementing their API Small Co. will be able to stand up with much more confidence and tell them to go away. Even if that could have been interpreted from previous legal doctrine, having such a clear and and recent statement on it will bolster anybody in that situation to defend themselves instead of caving.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      It's not a lack of courage that keeps small companies from defending themselves, it's a lack of money.
      - zmmmmm 14y ago
        Well, I would argue a clear precedent dramatically lowers the cost of defending yourself as well. Instead of a team of lawyers to finesse obscure complicated points and amassing huge quantities of research and evidence it just comes down to a simple well established point of law: the stuff is not copyrightable (I'd agree doesn't help so much with patents, which aren't affected by precedent in this case).
SquareWheel 14y ago
What a great judge. If only the politicians passing tech laws would put in this kind of effort.
- chii 14y ago
  a judge goes thru some very different education and indoctrinations than a politician would have. A judge is more difficult to corrupt, and/or bribe with circumstances, because there is no incentive for the judge to favour one or the other. Thus, this is fair. A politician has plenty of incentive to favour one party over another when creating legislation - after all, who pays for their campaign contributions? He/she/it who pays controls.
  - zopa 14y ago
    As it happens, most trial court judges in the US are elected. See here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/state_judicial_elections http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/state_... Judge Alsup is a federal judge, so he's an appointee, not an elected official. But most judges do need campaign donors. It's a problem.
kodeninja 14y ago
With this ruling, Judge William "Haskell" Alsup has become a personal hero of mine - a real caped crusader! Way to go, judge! The wider developer community salutes you.
grellas 14y ago
A few thoughts: 1. This is a meticulously researched, marvelously analyzed, and brilliantly synthesized order done by a judge who has a keen grasp of not just the facts of the case but of those that really matter. As the opinion notes, this was a case of "first impression" - meaning that no published decision has ever dealt specifically with the precise question raised of whether APIs in themselves are protectable by copyright or not. 2. The developer community needed a definitive ruling that was almost impossible to arrive at in light of the controlling precedents of the Ninth Circuit (which are binding on the judge). Why? Because (beginning with the Johnson Controls case in 1989) the precedents had held that the "structure, sequence, and organization" (SSO) of any part of a software program were potentially protectable by copyright and that the issues had to be determined case-by-case to determine whether a particular component was or was not protectable. Thus, the best a trial judge can do in such a case is to make a fact-specific conclusion about the case immediately being tried, one which would have limited impact in the next case, where the parties could argue the same issue on different facts. Yet, while doing just that and limiting his ruling to the particular facts before him, Judge Alsup has provided a definitive and logically compelling approach to how such issues are to be decided where they concern APIs and copyright and such reasoning is, in my view, destined to be widely applied throughout the court system going forward. Lower court rulings can have a powerful impact through the sheer force of their reasoning. This is just such a ruling. It is rare to get this. It could not have been better timed on a vital issue affecting interoperability in our modern era. 3. Fundamentally, Oracle had been arguing that the SSO of its 37 API packages reflected creative expression of precisely the type that the Copyright Act was intended to protect. And it is true that API design choices reflect all sorts of creative forms of expression. To deal with this issue, the judge got down to fundamentals, with the key language found at page 35 of the opinion: "Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a new output can be creative, even inventive, including the choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and functionality level — are protectable only under the Patent Act. The Patent and Trademark Office examines such inventions for validity and if the patent is allowed, it lasts for twenty years. Based on a single implementation, Oracle would bypass this entire patent scheme and claim ownership over any and all ways to carry out methods for 95 years — without any vetting by the Copyright Office of the type required for patents. This order holds that, under the Copyright Act, no matter how creative or imaginative a Java method specification may be, the entire world is entitled to use the same method specification (inputs, outputs, parameters) so long as the line-by-line implementations are different" (my emphasis). Thus, even though the judge was forced by Ninth Circuit precedents to assess the SSO based on the particular facts before him only, he did so by finding, as a matter of fact, that only a 3% layer of code dealt with the SSO of the API packages, that this consisted entirely of names that had to be identical for compatibility purposes and of tasks that could be performed in only one way in order to work, and in this way - having established the factual setting as consisting entirely of elements he concluded were unprotectable under copyright - he could make a powerful and sweeping statement of law that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on future cases. 4. The judge finally had to deal with the claim that the SSO constituted a sort of taxonomy that has been held protectable under copyright in other circuit courts. Here, too, he addressed the issue based on fundamentals: assuming that the API design structure here constituted a taxonomy, he nonetheless held that it was above all a command structure that was unprotectable based on 17 U.S.C. section 102(b) (which categorically excludes ideas, concepts, etc. from copyright protection). Thus (at page 39): "In our circuit, the structure, sequence and organization of a computer program may (or may not) qualify as a protectable element depending on the 'particular facts of each case' and always subject to exclusion of unprotectable elements. Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Sys., 886 F.2d 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 1989). Contrary to Oracle, Johnson Controls did not hold that all structure, sequence and organization in all computer programs are within the protection of a copyright." This is another way of saying that what might otherwise constitute protecable expression (e.g., the creative design choices made in developing the SSO of APIs) is nonetheless not protectable if it functionally operates within a computer program as a command structure. This, of course, is what APIs do and this means that his conclusion can be used as a powerful guide in all future API copyright cases. As a trial court decision, this ruling is not binding on other courts, yet it is compelling and persuasive, which can amount to the same thing (including in its impact on the Ninth Circuit when it considers this case on appeal). 5. Oracle here is like the Black Knight in Monty Python: as each limb of this case was lopped off, it dismissively would say "a mere flesh wound." Now that its case has been reduced to a final stump, it can continue to declaim but who will listen? Maybe a long shot on appeal but I wouldn't hold my breath. This is an unbelievable outcome that illustrates that great good can come even from lousy things that people do. The computing world owes a great vote of thanks to Judge Alsup: the cause of interoperability has won a huge victory.
duckduckgouser 14y ago
I'm so glad to hear this. This is more than a win for developers (almost) everywhere, this is deterrence for large companies that want to bully others with their legal team when almost everyone is saying what their legal team is doing is at best suspect and at worst a travesty.
rwmj 14y ago
I like how Florian Mueller manages to spin this[1] as a two year respite for Google who will eventually lose on appeal! [1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/judge-says-google-only-used.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/judge-says-google-only-us...
robomartin 14y ago
I can't remember ever having read a legal document that pulled me in as this one most-definitely did. I found it fascinating and educational. Every time I had a question Judge Alsup answered it. In detail. It clarified many points and questions I had about some of my work and upcoming projects where the question of interface vs. expression was surely going to come-up. The other thing it did for me is further clarify the demarcation line between copyright and patent. I had a very good idea, but this document explored edges I didn't know existed.
dctoedt 14y ago
Judge Alsup is an outstanding judge, but I would also bet a nickel that one or more of his clerks [1] had experience as a developer before going to law school. [1] A judicial clerk is a young lawyer, normally just out of law school and generally with a first-rate academic record, hired by a judge to serve for one or two years as a researcher and (often) as an opinion-drafter. ('grellas, for example clerked for Judge Ingraham.) Clerk positions are highly coveted among law students, because they can open doors to jobs in large law firms, the Justice Department, etc. As just one example, Chief Justice John Roberts clerked for then-Associate Justice, later Chief Justice William Rehnquist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk#United_States

735 points by mbreese 14y ago

Ralph Yarro is bummed.

Update: Grocklaw now links directly to the PDF: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf Someone linked to this in the groklaw comments: http://www.scribd.com/zdnetrachel/d/95477548-Oracle-v-Google-Order-Regarding-Copyrightability-of-APIs http://www.scribd.com/zdnetrachel/d/95477548-Oracle-v-Google... I assume this is legit.

mmastrac 14y ago

"So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different. When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and no one can monopolize that expression. And, while the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law."

Cyranix 14y ago
Yep, that's the juicy excerpt. Other bits that I found salient from the ruling, on patent vs. copyright: Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a new output can be creative, even inventive, including the choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and functionality level — are protectable only under the Patent Act. ... That a system or method of operation has thousands of commands arranged in a creative taxonomy does not change its character as a method of operation. Yes, it is creative. Yes, it is original. Yes, it resembles a taxonomy. But it is nevertheless a command structure, a system or method of operation — a long hierarchy of over six thousand commands to carry out pre-assigned functions. For that reason, it cannot receive copyright protection — patent protection perhaps — but not copyright protection. The entirety of p. 38, on interoperability and fragmentation, is also a good read.
- newhouseb 14y ago
  Does this mean that companies will start to patent their APIs? I wonder if this means we should expect virtually the same case s/copyright/patents/g a few years in the future.
  - wmf 14y ago
    Patenting of APIs/protocols/file formats has been going on for a while. The bar for patenting an API will be much higher[1] because it has to be a novel concept. [1] In theory. In reality, the USPTO will issue anything.
    - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
      USPTO will issue anything, but the patents rarely survive. In this litigation, all the patents brought out by Oracle were struct down.
      - dminor 14y ago
        Actually 2 of them survived until trial (1 still facing further review), but Google was deemed to not be infringing by the jury.
        WildUtah 14y ago
        The judge ordered Oracle to limit themselves to their ten best patents for the case and Oracle chose ten. Google then went to the Patent and Trademark Office to try to get those ten struck down. Two out of ten survived review. Eight were declared to have been mistakenly granted. (One of those is still under appeal.) That rate -- eight out of ten of the very best selection of software patents obviously bogus -- is actually low; many more than eight out of ten are bogus on average, even when only considering the best ones. But that was all Google could get from the PTO. Note that your startup can't just go to the PTO like that when attacked with bogus patents -- it takes years and millions of dollars. Then the trial started with two remaining patents. But they were not the two that survived review. One survived review and was in the trial. One is rejected on review but can still be appealed and also was in the trial. And one was rejected on review and then re-accepted on review appeal, but had still been rejected when Oracle requested an acceleration of the trial date so they had to abandon the claims to get their earlier trial date. The other seven remain rejected.

spullara 14y ago

How does this effect the GPL? Is this no longer something that the GPL can restrict? http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL

atamyrat 14y ago
I suppose linking to a library is quite different case than re-implementing it with the same interface.
- geon 14y ago
  > re-implementing it with the same interface. That is, after all, what the GNU project was created for.
ajross 14y ago
No, it's a different issue. When you take a GPL (not LGPL) library (not an API, an actual piece of software) and "use it", you're creating a derivative work of that library. The only way to license such a work is under the GPL. Because if you don't, you don't get a license to use the library (not the API, the software) under copyright law. But it's the copyright on the software that is the teeth here. In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code. Anyone who wants to ship useful software needs to abide by the copyright of the software they use. What Google (really Harmony) did is mere cloning. They (very) expressly didn't use Java the software, only the "Java API".
- perlgeek 14y ago
  > In principle you could distribute your code under GPL-incompatible licenses, but only as a piece of useless source code. It's not useless. Your customers can compile it, and link it to the GPLed library. After all the GPL allows you absolute freedom of use, as long as you don't distribute the derivative work.
  - 14y ago

mbreese 14y ago

Sanity prevails when you have a judge who can also code...

indiecore 14y ago

A sudden outbreak of sanity!

ajuc 14y ago
Let's hope it's addictive.

barrynolan 14y ago

Who is he referring to here? " For those who have depended on the self-described patent expert for your understanding of this case . . . well, maybe now you will know better than to trust a paid spokesman." FOSS Patents?

mintplant 14y ago
I would assume so.
shmerl 14y ago
Probably.
parfe 14y ago
Mueller's likely cooking up another article of baked shit right now. He will write about how Oracle actually won this case (even with all the verdicts and judgements going against them), so it was actually bad for Google. I guarantee he posts an article tomorrow lamenting how Google will only face more lawsuits like this and they won't luck out with an "incompetent" judge and google-loving jury next time. He has been so off the mark with every article he's written on this case he's got to have zero personal pride in his work. It's a shame people go to him for information. He's a poison in the software community.
- kierank 14y ago
  He makes valid points about abuse of the FRAND patent system.

ajross 14y ago

So, now that the recrimination phase of the trial has begun: where did Oracle go wrong? I mean, at this point they've lost everything and it's abundantly clear that Sun would have been better off just blessing whatever Google wanted to do as "Java". At the very least, they'd have gotten some branding karma and been able to sell an "Official Android Pro SDK" product or whatever. But at what point was that clear? Who missed that call?

marshray 14y ago
I think Oracle bought Sun, at least in part, thinking they could do a better job monetizing Java than Sun had done. That's where they went wrong.
- sounds 14y ago
  I have to agree. Oracle's only possible course in purchasing Sun was litigation. (And I think most expected nothing less from Larry Ellison.) Google seemed like a vulnerable target. Alsup was a spanner in Ellison's plan. It could be argued that Google's legal defense was another.
  - marshray 14y ago
    > Oracle's only possible course in purchasing Sun was litigation. To be fair to Oracle (OMG I can't believe I just typed that) it's not clear to me that they realized that at the time. Oracle has a relatively large, locked-in, and well-monetized customer base. They have tools and languages and interefaces too. I imagine that most of the time they don't end up litigating against their customers. Sun had a good customer base and a lot of them were fairly deeply committed to Sun hardware, Solaris, and yes, Java. Often they were running Oracle on Sun hardware and developing database data entry apps in Java. It's possible that they were thinking "There's a good synergy here with the market footprint, opportunity for vertical integration, we both have some server tools, developer tools used by committed/locked-in corporate users. Sun isn't getting any revenue from Java because they're just too much "Mr. Nice Guy". We can fix that, we know how to monetize an app platform in the corporate market. It may also be that I am hopelessly naive and they bought Sun solely as a ticket to sue Google. Edit: See example "Mr. Nice Guy" blog post at http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110723095928839 http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110723095928839 How would an Ellison interpret that?

Steko 14y ago

This is really a huge win for Google not just against Oracle but for Larry Page and Schmidt who made the ballsy call here and in general to remake many standards instead of licensing.

DigitalSea 14y ago

A judge making a rational and fair decision? Seems to be happening a lot lately, maybe the world is ending. Needless to say as a programmer this makes me incredibly happy, if the judge ruled API's are copyrightable, then there would have been a lot of sore bums as a result. I have a feeling if the judge didn't know how to code, the result could have been marginally different.

krschultz 14y ago
We as a community live and breath computers all day. When SOPA is put in front of us, we immediately know it is wrong. When you talk about the idea of copyrighting an API, we pretty much instantly were against it. And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers (not to open that can of worms here, but just as a point). Whethers its judges, politicians, companies, or public opinion overall, it can take years for the viewpoint of the 'experts' to become mainstream. We look at this stuff 24/7, most other people are thinking about it with 1% of their time. I don't think its just us either, if you dive into a community of people focused on medicine or energy, they are 5 years ahead of you and I as well. It just takes a long time to percolate outwards from the experts to the laymen.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  " And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers" I was with you up to that point. I think you would find that the majority of HN doesn't have a lot of sympathy for those who would distribute other people's creative works in violation of said creator's copyrights. After all, the same thing that protects authors rights in the GPL underly the rights belonging to the creators of "Game of Thrones". Let's not stretch something that 95%+ of us agree on (You should't be able to copyright an API) into a place where there isn't consensus.
  - koglerjs 14y ago
    I don't know about a majority. This poll, while hardly conclusive, suggests at least a sympathy for the "IP is imaginary!" crowd. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088

fpp 14y ago

This is definitively a relief for our whole industry. Thanks to Judge Alsup for taking an impartial stand on the whole matter and for the commitment to enable himself to an understanding of the matter and an informed decision going as far as to even learn himself how to program in Java. I hope this does not remain one of the few cases when knowledge, ethics and the law is applied in its true sense while billions are brought to the battlefield. Maybe all those that think that "rounded corners", sending email messages/calendar entries from mobile devices or different shades of gray are true inventions will one day soon rethink their monopoly strategies and start again with what they were once great at - actually create and invent things that people want to use.

jasomill 14y ago
While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, the "rounded corners" claim was that the specific corner shape was an ornamental as opposed to useful part of the iPad's design. Design patents and utility patents aren't even close to the same thing.
- fpp 14y ago
  And you are of course right, but - I believe - what is important here is that for keeping our legal systems functional it is necessary to actively limit the opportunities to abuse it
  - jasomill 14y ago
    True. And the main reason for keeping our legal system functional? The belief that alternatives would invite even more abuse!
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  The key element of both (all) types of patents is that, rather than "protecting" your property, they actually allow you to prevent others from independently inventing or designing the same thing by giving you a legal monopoly. In that regard using the law to prevent someone having rounded corners on a handheld device isn't too different from preventing them having a touchscreen device that you unlock by swiping.

DannoHung 14y ago

Anyone else hearing the Ewok victory song in their head?

heretohelp 14y ago
Yeeeep

luminaobscura 14y ago

"For example, Java-based code using the replicated parts of the 37 API packages will run on Android but will not if a 38th package is needed. Such imperfect interoperability leads to a “fragmentation” — a Balkanization — of platforms, a circumstance which Sun and Oracle have tried to curb via their licensing programs. In this litigation, Oracle has made much of this problem, at times almost leaving the impression that if only Google had replicated all 166 Java API packages, Oracle would not have sued." LOL

esrauch 14y ago
Why is that an LOL? That is exactly why Sun sued Microsoft and won. Microsofts JVM was slightly incompatible with the official one. If Microsoft had replicated all Java API packages, and not added Windows-specific ones then they wouldn't have sued. One of the big sells of Java has always been "write once, run anywhere", Sun sued Microsoft because their incompatible JVM made that not true anymore. Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work. Not that I think that is a particularly bad thing, since J2ME is a big pile of crap, but it's kind of interesting to see the difference between the perception in favor of Sun then and against Oracle here when the core issue is the same.
- orangecat 14y ago
  Microsoft entered into an contract with Sun specifically agreeing that any Java implementation they shipped would be fully compatible with Sun's version. Now it's effectively true of Android; no program written in Java not specifically for Android can possibly be expected to work. The large majority of existing Java code and libraries will work on Android without modification.
  - flomo 14y ago
    The relevant point being that Google didn't want to license Java under the standard terms because they wanted control over the platform, and certainly partially because they saw what happened to Microsoft. It certainly wasn't just the technical matter of reproducing "166 APIs", there was the whole political angle of putting Android under control of Sun/Oracle's committees. (And just on a trivial note, Microsoft eventually created their own 'clean-room' Java called "J#". It died in obscurity, but Google wasn't the first.)

dminor 14y ago

Great! Now just a few years of appeals and it will all be over...

thoughtsimple 14y ago

Don't celebrate too much yet. This is likely to be appealed. I think the judge did a good job in trying to make sure this decision stands on appeal but until the appeal process is over, this could still turn ugly.

chimeracoder 14y ago
IANAL, but I'm not sure that this is too likely, because of the way that Alsup separated the jury's decision from his own. Prosecution can't appeal a jury's acquittal; in this case, Alsup's ruling is separated from the jury's decision (remember when he told them to 'assume APIs are copyrightable'), so I'm not sure what the possible courses of legal action are here. This is a subtle point, so I imagine one would have to be a lawyer to answer this one, though I have a suspicion that there may not be a precedent here (or, if there is, it's a weak enough precedent that it could still reasonably go either way).
- DannyBee 14y ago
  I can't speak very much or about this particular case (because i'm involved), but i can tell you you are confusing civil and criminal law. You are correct that in a criminal case, the government cannot generally appeal a jury acquittal . In a civil case, you can appeal a jury verdict (in practice, I'm being deliberately loose with terminology to make this understandable), the usual method is to file a post-judgement motion for judgement as a matter of law, and then appeal its denial, or appeal the jury instructions, or ...
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    I know civil and criminal are different; however, I thought that was the whole point of the special jury instructions (making it impossible/more difficult for his ruling to be overturned on appeal). In any case, I guess we'll see soon....
    - DannyBee 14y ago
      Sadly, I can't comment on the jury instructions except to encourage you to look around at other patent and copyright cases and see if you think they are really all that special or different. I can say it is statistically more difficult to overturn jury verdicts than it is to overturn judge verdicts. On the patent side, you can find interesting but slightly out of date data here: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/04/are-appeals-at-the-federal-circuit-a-coin-flip.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/04/are-appeals-at-the-f... You should be able to figure out which issues are eliminated by having mainly a jury decision on patents instead of a judge decision.

12bit 14y ago

I imagine this has implications for the Cappuccino framework, which uses the Cocoa API with some minor changes (replacing NS with CP).

hannibalhorn 14y ago

Kudos to the judge for making the effort to really understand the issues. I'm curious, did WINE ever come up as an example of an alternative API implementation? I'd actually find that a more interesting case, as it's an alternative implementation of APIs where the creator never even envisioned there being an alternative implementation. Java, despite what Oracle may say, was always spec'd to a point where alternative implementations were probable, and many JVM improvements started off as proprietary forks/implementations.

fpgeek 14y ago
So far as I could tell, WINE was never part of the trial record (i.e. no testimony, exhibits, etc.) so it wouldn't (shouldn't) be referred to in the legal arguments in the trial. That being said, it would be good to see the WINE project submit an amicus brief (possibly with the help of, for example, the EFF) during the appeals process.

krschultz 14y ago

Reading the ruling is fantastic. The judge basically puts a CS 101 chapter in to explain some of the basics of Java. I laughed when he used the variable name 'Foo' as an example. This was one argument that I haven't seen before: "This brings us to the application programming interface. When Java was first introduced in 1996, the API included eight packages of pre-written programs. At least three of these packages were “core” packages, according to Sun, fundamental to being able to use the Java language at all. These packages were java.lang, java.io, and java.util. As a practical matter, anyone free to use the language itself (as Oracle concedes all are), must also use the three core packages in order to make any worthwhile use of the language. Contrary to Oracle, there is no bright line between the language and the API."

gruseom 14y ago
there is no bright line between the language and the API This is actually a deep observation about the relationship between languages and libraries: the line between them is fluid and to some extent just a convention. How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding. Let's hope he has succeeded in appeal-proofing the ruling.
- marshray 14y ago
  We could even call it "introspection".
- Natsu 14y ago
  > How astonishing that the judge of a lawsuit would show this level of technical understanding. It's been reported that he's done programming before. I had very high hopes based on that and the extensive research he did in preparing for this ruling. He asked for several rounds of briefings and spent a considerable amount of time reaching this decision. So in a sense it's not that astonishing: he worked really hard to arrive at the correct answer. I'm just glad they got such a capable judge.
  - gruseom 14y ago

EternalFury 14y ago

Does this set a precedent for all kinds of APIs or just the Java API? Can I go and implement any commercial API and sell my own implementation without having to pay any fee to the original author of the API? That would be awesome.

mbreese 14y ago
If you can be sure that the implementation wouldn't be encumbered by a patent, then yes. But, you can't be sure that you still wouldn't get sued. Although, if the API isn't publicly available, I'm not sure it is so clear. You've always needed to be able to implement APIs in order to have compatibility, so in essence, this decision puts into case-law what what already assumed to be the case.
- EternalFury 14y ago
  OK, let me clarify. Let's say a software vendor out there is making a ton of money with a product that exposes a certain API. Let's say I know a way to implement that API in such a manner that its performance will be improved by an order of magnitude. (without using any patented method in my implementation) Can I put together that implementation and market it as a competitive product? In my experience, APIs of commercial products are disclosed under the terms of their licensing agreement. So, one could argue that I cannot market a competitive implementation, if the license terms I agreed to (to gain knowledge of the API itself) prevent me to do so.
  - harshreality 14y ago
    If you agreed to a license or NDA prohibiting you from competing, that might be enforceable under contract law, but that is neither related to copyright nor patents. Assuming a case where there's no contract involved, patents are typically what would cause trouble. The original implementor will typically have a patent on some silly thing their software does, and you have to do that thing to make a compatible implementation, so they sue you for violating their patents.

modeless 14y ago

Favorite part: "Oracle has made much of nine lines of code that crept into both Android and Java. This circumstance is so innocuous and overblown by Oracle that the actual facts, as found herein by the judge, will be set forth below for the benefit of the court of appeals."

CUR10US 14y ago

So here's the question: Can you protect a computer language with copyright, e.g. a high level language like a scripting language?

marshray 14y ago
IANAL. Read the ruling. To me it seems to reaffirm the principle that no functional aspect of a system are under copyright. Sun/Oracle's consternation about it's lack of control over Java due to "fragmentation" was even interpreted to support the idea that the aspects of Java that Google copied to develop a compatible system were, in fact, functional. "Short labels" are out too. So AFAICT you can't copyright "if ... then", and you can't copyright "if" or "then" either. Also see the recent case of SAS (a computer language product) in the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_World_Programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_Wor...
saraid216 14y ago
I'm fairly sure that languages cannot ever be copyrighted, programming or otherwise.
- CUR10US 14y ago
  Can the interpreter be protected by copyright? Technically that is a program, not the language.
  - caf 14y ago
    Of course. But that doesn't stop anyone from writing their own interpreter that interprets the same language, as long as they don't copy any copyrightable parts of your interpreter to do so. (Such an interpreter would likely contain a table of function names. The effect of this ruling is to clarify that that set of function names can't be copyrighted, so the alternative implementation of your interpreter can copy it. We already knew that the names themselves couldn't be copyrighted, but this ruling clarifies that also the "structure, sequence and organsiation" of those function names can't be copyrighted either.)

zmmmmm 14y ago

I think the implications of this case are huge. Apart from having the non-copyrightability of APIs reaffirmed (hugely important in itself), we're now seeing the whole general broadside of the intellectual property armageddon largely fizzing out. We have huge tech giants throwing whole rafts of patents at each other and seeing time and time again 95% of them dismissed and the remainder get trivially worked around. Hopefully this starts to change the mentality into one where these companies realize that patents are fairly worthless protection for trivial ideas in the first place and the only way to truly protect yourself is to actually out-innovate and be one step ahead of where the competition is.

roguecoder 14y ago
The problem is that threatening to throw those patents at small companies has proven, and will probably continue, to be effective. It doesn't matter whether or not they effectively protect ideas when their true value lies in raising barriers to competition.
- zmmmmm 14y ago
  True, but I think the effect will even trickle down to smaller cases. That is the benefit of having a clear precedent set. For example when Big Co. now tries to sue Small Co. for implementing their API Small Co. will be able to stand up with much more confidence and tell them to go away. Even if that could have been interpreted from previous legal doctrine, having such a clear and and recent statement on it will bolster anybody in that situation to defend themselves instead of caving.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    It's not a lack of courage that keeps small companies from defending themselves, it's a lack of money.
    - zmmmmm 14y ago
      Well, I would argue a clear precedent dramatically lowers the cost of defending yourself as well. Instead of a team of lawyers to finesse obscure complicated points and amassing huge quantities of research and evidence it just comes down to a simple well established point of law: the stuff is not copyrightable (I'd agree doesn't help so much with patents, which aren't affected by precedent in this case).

SquareWheel 14y ago

What a great judge. If only the politicians passing tech laws would put in this kind of effort.

chii 14y ago
a judge goes thru some very different education and indoctrinations than a politician would have. A judge is more difficult to corrupt, and/or bribe with circumstances, because there is no incentive for the judge to favour one or the other. Thus, this is fair. A politician has plenty of incentive to favour one party over another when creating legislation - after all, who pays for their campaign contributions? He/she/it who pays controls.
- zopa 14y ago
  As it happens, most trial court judges in the US are elected. See here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/state_judicial_elections http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/state_... Judge Alsup is a federal judge, so he's an appointee, not an elected official. But most judges do need campaign donors. It's a problem.

kodeninja 14y ago

With this ruling, Judge William "Haskell" Alsup has become a personal hero of mine - a real caped crusader! Way to go, judge! The wider developer community salutes you.

grellas 14y ago

A few thoughts: 1. This is a meticulously researched, marvelously analyzed, and brilliantly synthesized order done by a judge who has a keen grasp of not just the facts of the case but of those that really matter. As the opinion notes, this was a case of "first impression" - meaning that no published decision has ever dealt specifically with the precise question raised of whether APIs in themselves are protectable by copyright or not. 2. The developer community needed a definitive ruling that was almost impossible to arrive at in light of the controlling precedents of the Ninth Circuit (which are binding on the judge). Why? Because (beginning with the Johnson Controls case in 1989) the precedents had held that the "structure, sequence, and organization" (SSO) of any part of a software program were potentially protectable by copyright and that the issues had to be determined case-by-case to determine whether a particular component was or was not protectable. Thus, the best a trial judge can do in such a case is to make a fact-specific conclusion about the case immediately being tried, one which would have limited impact in the next case, where the parties could argue the same issue on different facts. Yet, while doing just that and limiting his ruling to the particular facts before him, Judge Alsup has provided a definitive and logically compelling approach to how such issues are to be decided where they concern APIs and copyright and such reasoning is, in my view, destined to be widely applied throughout the court system going forward. Lower court rulings can have a powerful impact through the sheer force of their reasoning. This is just such a ruling. It is rare to get this. It could not have been better timed on a vital issue affecting interoperability in our modern era. 3. Fundamentally, Oracle had been arguing that the SSO of its 37 API packages reflected creative expression of precisely the type that the Copyright Act was intended to protect. And it is true that API design choices reflect all sorts of creative forms of expression. To deal with this issue, the judge got down to fundamentals, with the key language found at page 35 of the opinion: "Much of Oracle’s evidence at trial went to show that the design of methods in an API was a creative endeavor. Of course, that is true. Inventing a new method to deliver a new output can be creative, even inventive, including the choices of inputs needed and outputs returned. The same is true for classes. But such inventions — at the concept and functionality level — are protectable only under the Patent Act. The Patent and Trademark Office examines such inventions for validity and if the patent is allowed, it lasts for twenty years. Based on a single implementation, Oracle would bypass this entire patent scheme and claim ownership over any and all ways to carry out methods for 95 years — without any vetting by the Copyright Office of the type required for patents. This order holds that, under the Copyright Act, no matter how creative or imaginative a Java method specification may be, the entire world is entitled to use the same method specification (inputs, outputs, parameters) so long as the line-by-line implementations are different" (my emphasis). Thus, even though the judge was forced by Ninth Circuit precedents to assess the SSO based on the particular facts before him only, he did so by finding, as a matter of fact, that only a 3% layer of code dealt with the SSO of the API packages, that this consisted entirely of names that had to be identical for compatibility purposes and of tasks that could be performed in only one way in order to work, and in this way - having established the factual setting as consisting entirely of elements he concluded were unprotectable under copyright - he could make a powerful and sweeping statement of law that will undoubtedly have a huge impact on future cases. 4. The judge finally had to deal with the claim that the SSO constituted a sort of taxonomy that has been held protectable under copyright in other circuit courts. Here, too, he addressed the issue based on fundamentals: assuming that the API design structure here constituted a taxonomy, he nonetheless held that it was above all a command structure that was unprotectable based on 17 U.S.C. section 102(b) (which categorically excludes ideas, concepts, etc. from copyright protection). Thus (at page 39): "In our circuit, the structure, sequence and organization of a computer program may (or may not) qualify as a protectable element depending on the 'particular facts of each case' and always subject to exclusion of unprotectable elements. Johnson Controls v. Phoenix Control Sys., 886 F.2d 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 1989). Contrary to Oracle, Johnson Controls did not hold that all structure, sequence and organization in all computer programs are within the protection of a copyright." This is another way of saying that what might otherwise constitute protecable expression (e.g., the creative design choices made in developing the SSO of APIs) is nonetheless not protectable if it functionally operates within a computer program as a command structure. This, of course, is what APIs do and this means that his conclusion can be used as a powerful guide in all future API copyright cases. As a trial court decision, this ruling is not binding on other courts, yet it is compelling and persuasive, which can amount to the same thing (including in its impact on the Ninth Circuit when it considers this case on appeal). 5. Oracle here is like the Black Knight in Monty Python: as each limb of this case was lopped off, it dismissively would say "a mere flesh wound." Now that its case has been reduced to a final stump, it can continue to declaim but who will listen? Maybe a long shot on appeal but I wouldn't hold my breath. This is an unbelievable outcome that illustrates that great good can come even from lousy things that people do. The computing world owes a great vote of thanks to Judge Alsup: the cause of interoperability has won a huge victory.

duckduckgouser 14y ago

I'm so glad to hear this. This is more than a win for developers (almost) everywhere, this is deterrence for large companies that want to bully others with their legal team when almost everyone is saying what their legal team is doing is at best suspect and at worst a travesty.

rwmj 14y ago

I like how Florian Mueller manages to spin this[1] as a two year respite for Google who will eventually lose on appeal! [1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/judge-says-google-only-used.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/judge-says-google-only-us...

robomartin 14y ago

I can't remember ever having read a legal document that pulled me in as this one most-definitely did. I found it fascinating and educational. Every time I had a question Judge Alsup answered it. In detail. It clarified many points and questions I had about some of my work and upcoming projects where the question of interface vs. expression was surely going to come-up. The other thing it did for me is further clarify the demarcation line between copyright and patent. I had a very good idea, but this document explored edges I didn't know existed.

dctoedt 14y ago

Judge Alsup is an outstanding judge, but I would also bet a nickel that one or more of his clerks [1] had experience as a developer before going to law school. [1] A judicial clerk is a young lawyer, normally just out of law school and generally with a first-rate academic record, hired by a judge to serve for one or two years as a researcher and (often) as an opinion-drafter. ('grellas, for example clerked for Judge Ingraham.) Clerk positions are highly coveted among law students, because they can open doors to jobs in large law firms, the Justice Department, etc. As just one example, Chief Justice John Roberts clerked for then-Associate Justice, later Chief Justice William Rehnquist. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk#United_States