Last month, we reported a partial victory for Oracle in the lawsuit against Google on various questions of intellectual property infringement with regard to computer programming languages. The jury decided that Google was liable for copyright infringement by using programming code from Oracle's Java API in its mobile operating system Android. However, the decision of the jury was based on the explicit hypothesis that the Java API was protected by copyright. On 31 May 2012, Judge William Alsup ruled that Google only copied the headers of the Java API, which are not protected by copyright. Thus, Google is not liable for copyright infringement. 

Judge Alsup emphasizes that his order does not mean that Java API packages are free for all to use without licence, nor that the structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be stolen. His judgement only applies to the specific facts of this case. The particular Java elements used by Google are not protected by the U.S. Copyright Act.

The ruling of judge Alsup makes the previous jury decision on copyright infringement obsolete, because no copyrights apply to the Java elements in question.

In addition to their considerations on copyright infringements in case copyrights would apply, the jury deliberated about applicable patent rights in this case. They concluded unanimously that Google did not infringe Oracle patents. 

Oracle said it will appeal. 

The decision of judge Alsup can be found here.

Read more about the Google versus Oracle lawsuit on FutureOfCopyright.c

• Partial victory for Oracle in lawsuit against Google
• TODAY: Rivals Google and Oracle clash over copyrights Java
• ECJ: no copyright on programming languages

Source: Webwereld