Supreme Court hears arguments in Google-Oracle copyright dispute News
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Supreme Court hears arguments in Google-Oracle copyright dispute

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in cases concerning copyright and personal jurisdiction issues.

Google v. Oracle, involves a $9 billion copyright suit. The suit originated several years ago when Google created the mobile software Android using part of Oracle’s programming language. While Google argued that allowing the company to copy the language encourages technological innovation, Oracle asserts that Google did not have a right to use their copyrighted material. Interestingly, Google used only 0.1 percent of Oracle’s 15 million lines of code, which they have justified using “fair use” copyright rules. Additionally, creating Android without the programming language could have cost Google billions of dollars.

Ford Motor v. Montana Eighth Judicial District addresses the issue of relatedness in personal jurisdiction. Although the Supreme Court avoided hearing personal jurisdiction issues from 1990-2010, Ford Motor is only the latest in a recent spate of jurisdiction cases. Here, the court must decide in what court a plaintiff can sue a company whose vehicle killed a driver in Montana but was assembled in Kentucky and sold in Washington (before being sold again in Oregon). According to Ford, the “relate to” standard for personal jurisdiction has a distinctly causal element so that the company must have taken action with the cars involved in the accident in the location where the accident took place. Although it conducts business in the state where the accident took place, Ford argued that this business did not cause the accident. The plaintiffs simply argued that the company should be held liable if it sells vehicles in the state where the accident occurred.

Oral arguments by phone are scheduled to continue by phone next Tuesday at 10 AM.

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