January 2020

Oracle v. Google: Will The Best Analogy Win?

by Lee Gesmer on January 17, 2020

Oracle v. Google: Will The Best Analogy Win?

Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home – Sigmund Freud

One good analogy is worth three hours discussion – Dudley Field Malone

Oracle v. Google, now before the Supreme Court, is a complicated case in more ways than one. The copyright law issues are difficult, but the case is made even more challenging by its subject matter, which involves highly technical and abstruse computer technology. Judges have a hard enough time applying copyright law to traditional media like music, novels and photographs, but software copyright cases add another order of magnitude of complexity.

The legal briefs now before the Supreme Court are overflowing with computer jargon. You can read all about the “Java language,” the “Java virtual machine,” the “Dalvik virtual machine,” “application programming interfaces (APIs),” “packages,” “classes,” “calls,” “declarations,” “methods,” “implementing code” and “declaring code,” and much more.

Nor did the Federal Circuit pull any punches in its 2014 decision (one of two under appeal.)… Read the full article