The following statement is attributed to Abby Rives, Engine’s IP Counsel, regarding today’s Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle:
Statement:
“This morning’s decision in Google v. Oracle is a win for startups and developers across the country. The Supreme Court has left the doors open to innovators and entrepreneurs using APIs to create interoperability and compatibility between computer programs. With confirmation that such use is fair, startups can more affordably build software without incurring steep licensing costs and facing the constant risk of litigation.”
Background:
Today the Supreme Court announced its decision in the decade-long dispute between Oracle and Google over the permissible use of application programming interfaces (APIs). As we have previously explained, “An API is like listing an item on a restaurant’s menu. You can order a ‘burger,’ and the restaurant knows what to bring you. And that order is much easier than explaining all the details to a chef . . . or making the burger yourself from scratch. . . . An entrepreneur starting a new restaurant will want to put a ‘burger’ on the menu, instead of selling a ‘beef sandwich’ or expecting customers to dictate full recipes. The same reasoning goes for entrepreneurs launching tech startups.”
Oracle had first sued Google in 2010 for patent and copyright infringement. And in this case that ultimately centered on accusations that Google infringed copyright by reimplementing Java APIs, a California district court twice ruled in Google’s favor before a D.C. appeals court overturned both decisions. Today, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that Google’s reimplementation of Java APIs is a fair use—and not copyright infringement. This ruling provides clarity for the tech industry by signaling that developers can use APIs without infringing copyright.
