Summary: The lawsuit brought by Oracle against Google seeking $9 billion in damages was thrown out again by a California judge, but the ruling could be appealed again.
It has been a good day for Google. The major court battle between Google and software giant Oracle was thrown out by a California District Federal court jury. Google was accused of using elements of Oracle’s Java programming language; otherwise of stealing code and abusing copyright information. Had Google lost, they would have been required to pay $9 billion in damages and make major changes to how their software is developed.
Oracle sued Google in 2010 for taking parts of their application and using in the features of Android. Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, the creator Java, earlier in 2010. A California judge in 2012 sided with Google and that APIs were not copyrightable. Oracle appealed.
Read Oracle seeks damages “in the billions of dollars” from Google to learn more.
The federal appeals court in 2014 decided that Oracle had a viable argument for the copyright claim to allow the case to proceed. Unfortunately for Oracle, the judge in the case said that Google’s use of code for their Android product was fair use.
A Google spokesperson said, “Today’s verdict that Android makes fair use of Java APIs represents a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products.”
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Oracle replied, “We strongly believe that Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market. Oracle brought this lawsuit to put a stop to Google’s illegal behavior. We believe there are numerous grounds for appeal and we plan to bring this case back to the Federal Circuit on appeal.”
The ruling lets programmers’ breath easily for now. Oracle can still appeal again.
Do you think Oracle will appeal? Tell us in the comments below.
To learn more about the lawsuit, read Google and Oracle Fight Over Use of Code Lines.
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