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Oracle Claims Google 'Directly Copied' Our Java Code

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-not-fair dept.

itwbennett writes "On Wednesday, Oracle amended the lawsuit it filed against Google in August, saying that 'approximately one third of Android's Application Programmer Interface (API) packages' are 'derivative of Oracle's copyrighted Java API packages' and related documents. In particular, 'the infringed elements of Oracle America's copyrighted work include Java method and class names, definitions, organization, and parameters; the structure, organization and content of Java class libraries; and the content and organization of Java's documentation,' Oracle says. 'In at least several instances, Android computer program code also was directly copied from copyrighted Oracle America code,' Oracle alleges."

4 of 675 comments (clear)

  1. Dangerous claim by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The infringed elements of Oracle America’s copyrighted work include Java method and class names, definitions, organization, and parameters; the structure, organization and content of Java class libraries; and the content and organization of Java’s documentation," Oracle says.

    All of this stuff should count as an interface, and therefore not covered by copyright under US law. If they win this, then it sets a very dangerous precedent. Any project that implements an interface defined by another would potentially be violating copyright - including every single PC, which includes a BIOS that implements the behaviour of the IBM-copyrighted PC BIOS. Projects like WINE and GNUstep would also be in serious trouble and Linux (implementing UNIX APIs) would be illegal.

    Claiming that Google copied their code is interesting. I was under the impression that the java.* classes in Android came from Apache, not from the Sun releases. Is Oracle trying to pull a SCO here? (i.e. it does something like what our code does, therefore it's ours).

    They really should have kept this as a patent / trademark issue. Bringing copyrights in is a terrible idea.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    1. Re:Dangerous claim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      All those perfectly valid points aside, there's the slight matter of Sun having released the vast majority of their API implementation as open source.

  2. Apple - Java by aitikin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So maybe this is why Apple decided to stop updating their java and leave it to Oracle...

    --
    "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
  3. Re:Behaving like SCO... by jdgeorge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apparently they are getting really desperate and are behaving like SCO now. If you have tons of getters, setters and other small functions, it is easy to have the same implementation in all cases.

    My guess: What Oracle is desparate for is a cross licensing deal with Google to give them access to Google's IP related to massively distributed data storage/retrieval. Google, on the other hand, isn't particularly interested in giving away their crown jewels in this way.