Larry Page, CEO of Google Inc., right, speaks to the media as he arrives at the court in San Jose, California, USA, on Monday, September 19, 2011.
Ryan Anson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Monday sat down with Google against Oracle in a long-running copyright dispute over the software used in Android, the mobile operating system.
The court’s decision was 6-2. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who had not yet been confirmed by the Senate when the case was heard in October, did not take part in the case.
The case involved 12,000 lines of code Google used to build Android, copied from the Java application programming interface developed by Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2010. U.S. Copyright Law.
Oracle claims on points that it owes as much as $ 9 billion, while Google claims that its use of the code is covered under the doctrine of fair use.
Oracle sued Google over the use of its code and twice won the case before the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal.
Read more: Judges are wary of emerging technology industry in battle against Google’s Supreme Court against Oracle
Judge Stephen Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion in the case, agrees that Google’s use of the code is protected under fair use.
‘We conclude that in this case, where Google re-implemented a user interface, took only what was necessary to enable users to put their built-in talents into a new and transforming program, copying the Sun Java API a reasonable use of the material as a matter, Breyer wrote.
Breyer was accompanied by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito differed.
The case, one of the most important of the term, has sparked a sincere struggle over competitive visions on the future of software development.
“The long-standing practice of reusing software interfaces is critical to modern software development,” Google’s lawyer, Supreme Court veteran jurist Tom Goldstein, told the judges during arguments.
The case was originally scheduled to be heard last term before being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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