[JURIST] A US jury concluded that Google was not in violation of copyright laws where it used Oracle’s Java programming language to develop its operating system, Android. After the case was remanded in-part by an earlier circuit court decision [decision, PDF], the jurors were tasked with determining whether Google’s use of the Java language was considered “fair-use” under copyright law. The victory for Google, which will eliminate Oracle’s claim for $9 billion of Google’s Android phone business, serves to encourage [Bloomberg report] software companies to write “re-implementations of the systems used to pass information between widely-used software,” as they will not, as of now, have to fear the legal repercussions. Despite this victory for those seeking to use re-implemented programming language, the previous decision, which had remanded the issue of fair-use in this case, may still make some take precaution. In that case, the circuit court held that Java APIs were granted copyright protection.

In 2012 a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ordered [JURIST report] Oracle to reimburse Google about $1 million for costs incurred during the course of the companies’ recent patent litigation. Earlier that year a federal jury held [JURIST report] that Google’s use of the application programming interfaces was not an infringement of Oracle’s patents. Earlier that month the jury found itself deadlocked [JURIST report] on the issue of whether Google’s use could be considered “fair use” making it difficult for Oracle to win a large damage award. The case went to trial [JURIST report] after settlement negotiations broke down. This most recent decision was preceded by the 2014 ruling in which the circuit court allowed Oracle to bring its case [JURIST report] against Google.