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US Justice Department Urges Supreme Court Not To Take Up Google v. Oracle

Posted by timothy on from the leave-well-enough-alone dept.

New submitter Areyoukiddingme writes: The Solicitor General of the Justice Department has filed a response to the US Supreme Court's solicitation of advice regarding the Google vs. Oracle ruling and subsequent overturning by the Federal Circuit. The response recommends that the Federal Circuit ruling stand, allowing Oracle to retain copyright to the Java API.

13 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Clean room implementation? by ardentsoap · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, I can't make an API that mimics theirs because copyright?

    1. Re:Clean room implementation? by XanC · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Can they make Compaq's reverse engineering of IBM's BIOS illegal retroactively, and take back much of the PC revolution?

    2. Re:Clean room implementation? by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If copyright governs interfaces, that part of the law will keep the government from stealing IP away from its rightful owners after twenty years.

      You mean stop government from returning it to the rightful owners. The public (and public domain) are the rightful owners of all information and works - copyright/patents just give exclusive use for a time.

    3. Re:Clean room implementation? by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oracle must have contributed to the right Administration official.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    4. Re:Clean room implementation? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why because the court asked for the government's opinion?

      No. Because the government's opinion sounds like it was written by Oracle's general counsel

    5. Re:Clean room implementation? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be fair, if it was (R) it would have happened too. And when people say that the (D) and (R) are really different, you can point them to this case to show that ... no not really.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    6. Re:Clean room implementation? by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nitpick - technically, we're talking about Java, where there are no header files. The interface is defined in the same source files as the implementation.

      Even so, I don't think an API should be copyrightable, but if it is, it should be considered fair use to actually use it. Otherwise, the software industry just wouldn't work.

    7. Re:Clean room implementation? by UdoKeir · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or Google has been resisting the NSA a little too much.

  2. Someone claim (C) on something oracle depend on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like libc, or whatever, or change licenses to an "Oracle Exclusion License" so stupid things like "Copyrighting APIs" get dropped and common sense rules again.

  3. Mini Sample by koan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of what the TPP is going to do.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  4. Justice Department? by BenJeremy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WTF do they have to do with this case? This isn't a criminal proceeding, it's a civil matter.

    This isn't about "protecting" Oracle (though there may be some $$$ influence involved), but rather more about protecting the copyright racket, strengthening it beyond the accepted scope.

    APIs should not ever be copyrighted. Once you start doing that, it's only a matter of time before Disney copyrights all cartoon renderings of a mouse, or Nickelback gets to copyright all formulaic/generic rock.

    Unfortunately... the Justice Department, likely at the behest of the White House, is intervening to influence copyright law and give corporations even more power. Ugh. It's like our government is pushing to see how far it can go to enslave citizens (the real, human kind, not the corporate nonsense kind) before they decide they've had enough of this shit.

    I'd be inclined to chalk this up as a "First World Problem" but clamping down on technology denies everybody equal access. This is a serious infringement of our freedoms that will have a chilling effect on the progress of technology to help people in their daily lives everywhere in the world. It's not just about Java - it's about any programming language interface.

  5. Re:Wasn't Java open sourced? by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is why when Microsoft open sourced the new .NET framework recently, they also included a "Covenant not the Sue" document saying you were free to re-implement the .NET API with your own code. Basically, promising not to pull an Oracle. The upshot is .NET is now more free-as-in-freedom than Java. It's enough to make your head explode.

  6. legacy of this administration by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Looks like Obama's primary legacy may be to enshrine API copyrights in law. If this had been the law of the land in the 80's and 90's, Linux and FOSS would never have gotten off the ground.