Google has won its long-running dispute with Oracle over use of Java code in the Android operating system. While Oracle had claimed royalties for the software it owns, the US Supreme Court sided with Google, saying 'fair use' rules covered the company from violating copyright.
The ruling sets a major legal precedent for the software industry, meaning portions of code may be re-used for new developments without necessarily incurring a dependency on the previous developer.
To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. It also used about 11,500 lines of code copyrighted as part of Oracle’s Java platform. Oracle had sued in 2010 seeking billions.
The Supreme Court sided 6-2 with Google, describing the copying as "fair use", an exception under US copyright law for certain applications of protected material that advance research or creativity. In his opinion for the court’s majority, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that Google "took only what was needed" and that Google’s copying was "transformative", a word the court has used "to describe a copying use that adds something new and important".
Google had said its actions were long-settled, common practice in the industry, a practice that has been good for technical progress. It said there is no copyright protection for the purely functional, noncreative computer code it used, something that couldn’t be written another way.
In 2016, a San Francisco jury found that Google had not violated copyright laws. However, in 2018 the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed with that assessment and sent the case back for a trial to determine how much Google must pay in damages. The company subsequently asked the Supreme Court to settle the case.
Oracle was disappointed by the ruling, saying it would only strengthen Google's grip on the market. "They stole Java and spent a decade litigating as only a monopolist can," Oracle's general counsel and executive VP Dorian Daley said in a statement. "This behavior is exactly why regulatory authorities around the world and in the United States are examining Google’s business practices."
