Supreme Court Expands Upon Software Fair Use In Google v. Oracle

On April 5, 2021, after 10 years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court published its decision in the much-watched Google v. Oracle dispute. The Court held that use of certain "declaring code" from the Java API in the Android operating system was a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The Supreme Court provided a detailed explication of how, in the context of the copyright in computer code, federal courts should assess the four guiding fair use factors set forth in Section 107: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Because its decision on fair use resolved the dispute before it, the Supreme Court declined to address the "copyrightability" issue raised below: whether the declaring code from the Java API is even protectable