Google: Oracle Java win will kill software development, so the Supreme Court must rule

Google has asked the US Supreme Court to review its nine-year copyright dispute with Oracle on the use of Java APIs in Android.

Google asks the Supreme Court to make a decision on two overriding decisions in Google's favor that APIs are not copyrighted and that Google's use of Java APIs is "fair use".

In a blog post, Google's chief lawyer, Kent Walker, compares copyrighting APIs to say that keyboard shortcuts can work with just one type of computer.

"We built Android for the computer industry's renowned practice of reusing software interfaces, which provides sets of commands that make it easy to implement common functionality ̵[ads1]1; just like keyboard shortcuts on the computer like pressing" control "and" p " makes it easy to print, "writes Walker.

" Android created a transformative new platform, while millions of Java programmers use their existing skills to create new applications. And the creators of Java supported the release of Android and said it had "attached another set of rockets to the speed of society". "

Of course, Oracle got Java's owners, Sun Microsystems, in 2009 and said that Java was the most important The software Oracle had ever purchased. Only over a year later it sued Google over the use of Java in Android.

Google makes a decision for Oracle as a disaster for all developers.

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"Unless the Supreme Court corrects these twins, this case will end the developer's traditional ability to use existing software interfaces to build new generations of consumer computer programs," Walker writes.

Google's concern for innovation is a smoke screen, according to Oracle EVP and Advocate General Dorian Daley, who says the Supreme Court should refuse Google's request to review the case.

"The produced concern for innovation hides Google's true concern: that it allows the unnoticed ability to copy the original and valuable work of others as a matter of convenience and of substantial financial gain. This is not and has never been a valid justification for copying, "Daley wrote.

" Oracle will continue its efforts to protect and reinforce its own innovations, as well as the other innovators, by ensuring that the well-established principles of Copyright is not undermined by anyone trying to cut corners. In major wins for software innovation, the Court of Appeals has twice equated with Oracle against Google. The Court of Appeals was correct every time. The Supreme Court would once again deny Google's request to take the case.

As Google explains in its request to the Supreme Court, in 2005, it needed to "accurately replicate the syntax and structure of the Java API declaration" so that developers could use known commands instead of learning new ones.

Google did this for 37 Java API libraries it was considered "key to mobile devices," and then wrote its own "implementation code, tailoring the code to meet the unique challenges of the smartphone environment".

Google claims that it has independently written the implementation code, and that only three percent of the code was the same between 37 disputed Java API libraries and associated Android libraries.

In total, there are less than 0.1 percent of over 15 million relevant code lines in Android overlap with Java.

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