A bid by Alphabet Inc.'s Google for Supreme Court review of two lower court rulings that it infringed Oracle America Inc.'s Java software gives the court a chance to define how copyright law applies to software.
Oracle won a $8.8 billion award after nearly a decade of litigation over whether software interfaces merit copyright protection, and whether Google’s use of them while building its Android operating system constituted fair use.
If the justices take the case, they could revisit the copyrightability of interfaces after deadlocking 4-4 on the question in a 1996 case, Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International Inc. ...
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