Packages Of Computer Source Code Entitled To Copyright Protection

In Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., Nos. 13-1021, -1022 (Fed. Cir. May 9, 2014), the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part and reversed-in-part the district court's decision, holding that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of packages of computer source code known as "application programming interfaces," or API packages, were entitled to copyright protection.

The case stemmed from API packages in the Java programming language consisting of words and symbols that carry out various commands, and which Oracle America, Inc. ("Oracle") licenses to software developers to write applications, or "apps," for computers, tablets, smartphones, and similar devices. The Java system was originally created by Oracle's predecessor, Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun"), in 1996. Sun wrote multiple "ready-to-use" Java API programs, which it organized into "packages." These prewritten shortcuts allow programmers to include certain functionality into their own programs without having to create new code from scratch. Each package contains "classes" that consist of code for specific functions known as "methods." For example, one package at issue was "java.lang," which contains a class called "math," whose method instructs a device to find the larger of two numbers. Adopting the district court's analogy, the Federal Circuit explained, "Oracle's collection of API packages is like a library, each package is like a bookshelf in the library, each class is like a book on the shelf, and each method is like a how-to chapter in a book." Slip op. at 7. Each package also contains declaring code, or the expression that "identifies the prewritten function" and "command[s] the computer to execute the associated implementing code," which gives step-by-step instructions to carry out the function. Id. at 8.

At issue on appeal were thirty-seven API packages whose declaring code Google Inc. ("Google") admittedly copied verbatim into its then-new software platform, Android. In bringing its copyright infringement claims, Oracle argued that its 7,000 lines of declaring source code and nonliteral elements of the thirty-seven Java API packages were protectable by copyright law. In its opinion, the Court sifted through a number of issues at hand, particularly focusing on answering the ultimate question of "whether [the] elements of the Java platform are entitled to copyright protection." Id. at 15.

In addressing copyrightability generally, the Court reiterated that...