Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc Implications of the Case on Intellectual Property Law
The Facts of the Case as described by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit: Oracle America Inc. owns a copyright in Java SE, a computer platform that uses the popular Java computer programming language. In 2005 Google acquired Android and sought to build a new software platform for mobile devices. To allow the millions of programmers familiar with the Java programming language to work with its new Android platform, Google copied roughly 11,500 lines of code from the Java SE program. The copied lines are part of a tool called an Application Programming Interface (API). An API allows programmers to call upon pre-written computing tasks for use in their own programs. The summary of the case goes on to say that it was the purpose of the lower courts to determine whether the owner of the Java SE could copyright the copied lines and whether Google copying constituted a permissible fair use of that material freeing Google from copyright liability. The case between Google and Oracl