Oracle v Google: US government says Supreme Court should not hear case
Google has been a dealt a blow in its copyright battle with Oracle after the US government said that the country’s Supreme Court should deny the search company’s petition to hear the dispute.
In January the Supreme Court asked Donald Verrilli, the US solicitor general at the Department of Justice, whether it should hear the long-running copyright battle.
But yesterday (May 26), Verrilli said Google’s petition should be denied.
The Supreme Court asked Verilli for his opinion after Google had appealed against a May 2014 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that went in favour of Oracle and found Google’s Android operating system liable for copyright infringement.
Google had submitted a writ of certiorariin October last year in which it asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.
At the centre of the dispute are 37 application programming interfaces (APIs) used in Oracle’s Java computer program.
In 2010, Oracle filed both a patent and copyright claim against Google at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The district court cleared Google of patent infringement, but was undecided on whether the APIs are eligible for copyright protection.
After Oracle appealed against the decision, the federal circuit ruled that the APIs were copyrightable and that Google’s Android software infringed them.
Although the Supreme Court does not have to take the advice of the solicitor general, his or her opinion does carry weight.
The solicitor general is referred to by some as the ‘tenth justice’, in reference to the Supreme Court’s nine judges.
WIPR contacted both Google and Oracle for comment, but has so far not had a response.
But both companies have issued statements to news publication Reuters.
A Google spokesperson said: “We appreciate the solicitor general’s careful review of this issue; however, we’re disappointed with these conclusions.”
A spokesperson for Oracle said the recommendation “affirms the importance of copyright protection as an incentive for software innovation”.
The news has not been welcomed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of Google.
Ed Black, president of the CCIA, said: “The technology sector is heavily dependent on interoperability, and imposing legal constraints on interoperation between programming languages can lead to serious competitive harm.
“The Supreme Court should absolutely hear this case. The justice department got this wrong ... This would have been an opportunity for the administration to demonstrate its forward-looking technological leadership,” he added.
Donald Curry, partner at law firm Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto said: "The issue of the extent to which Java’s APIs are copyrightable is one of importance in the technology industry, with those in favor of ease of interoperability expressing concern about copyright protection for APIs.
"Even though the solicitor general has recommended that the Supreme Court not review the decision in this case, which recognised copyright protection in APIs, the court may still decide to do so," he added.
The Supreme Court is expected to make a final decision on the case next month.
