The basic question "are APIs eligible for copyright
protection?" has consumed much analysis (and legal fees)
during the lawsuit between Oracle and Google, which started in
2010. (For more reading on our long-running coverage of the
long-running Oracle vs. Google patent and copyright
litigation, see below.)
The basic premise of Oracle's complaint against Google is
that the wildly popular Android operating system copied 37 Java API
packages verbatim, and inserted the code from those APIs into the
Android software. This copying was done without a license from
Oracle. Therefore, says Oracle, copyright infringement has
occurred. In a 2012 decision, the district court decided that the
Java APIs were not subject to copyright protection.
Therefore, said the lower court, there was no infringement. The US
Federal Court of Appeals has reversed that finding.
