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April 13, 2021 at 12:55 PM
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Pardon the punny title, but there is simply no way that an IP columnist can write a column this week about anything other than the already-controversial
Google v. Oracle SCOTUS decision. (For a great recap of the majority opinion authored by Justice Breyer, I commend the SCOTUSBlog opinion analysis authored by Ronald Mann, available here.) As everyone is aware, the dispute between Google and Oracle stemmed from Google’s copying now koshered by SCOTUS as fair use of over 10,000 lines of code from Sun Microsystem’s (acquired by Oracle) Java programming language. Google used Java as a basis for Android, the multibillion dollar per year generating mobile operating system that powers the majority of non-Apple smartphones. As my nonsoftware programming mind understands it, Google had the option of basing Android on a completely new programming language, but chose to use at least some Java underpinnings to save third-party Android developers fr