I have been following this case where the jury has reached a decision on the use of Java in Android in which Oracle, as the holder of Java patents (from the take over of Sun), has been suing Google.<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.muktware.com/3585/major-victory-google-oracle-vs-google-court-case">http://www.muktware.com/3585/major-victory-google-oracle-vs-google-court-case</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>It is now boiling down to whether the Java API's can be copyrighted, for the legal IT pedantic the full case case can be studied on Groklaw.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012050909451990">http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012050909451990</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>The European Court of Justice has ruled that API's can't be copyrighted so that might put the U.S. judge in a position. It might create a cascading effect on programming patents, based upon his judgement if he decides that API's can be copyrighted, which could end up in the U.S. Supreme court.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/eus-top-court-apis-cant-be-copyrighted-would-monopolise-ideas/">http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/eus-top-court-apis-cant-be-copyrighted-would-monopolise-ideas/</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>The most amazing thing about this is when Oracle CEO Larry Ellison testified in court "If people could copy our software and create cheap knockoffs of our
products, we wouldn't get paid for our engineering and wouldn't be able
to invest what we invest." So why is Larry is using Red Hat source code (free to everyone) for his Unbreakable Linux OS, which originates from the Fedora Project, this is total hypocrisy!</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/80322">http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/80322</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>I really hope that Oracle loses here for the sake of openness and freedom.</div><div><br></div><div>Gordon</div>