SCOTUS Copyright Fair Use Decision: Google vs. Oracle Recap and Takeaways

Eugene Mar and Erik Olson discuss "SCOTUS Copyright Fair Use Decision: Google vs. Oracle Recap and Takeaways."

After more than a decade of litigation that included multiple trials and appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States finally put an end to the copyright infringement case Oracle brought against Google. The case was about Google copying into its Android platform several thousand lines of Oracle’s Java Application Programming Interface (API) software code, which the Supreme Court found constituted fair use. But does the decision mean that all API code is now “fair game” for software developers to copy? Not so fast. Fair use is an equitable doctrine that requires the balancing of several factors and a fact-intensive analysis.

Here is a recap discussion of the Supreme Court’s decision and a discussion of practical takeaways for software companies who need to mount – or undermine – a fair use defense.