James Niccolai

Google was dealt a blow in the multibillion dollar lawsuit alleging its Android operating system infringes on intellectual property owned by Oracle.

A federal appeals court granted Oracle's appeal in the case, ruling that programming interfaces in Oracle's Java technology can be protected under US copyright law. The appeals court has now referred the case back to the District Court in San Francisco, where a different jury will have to decide whether Google's use of the APIs was protected.

In a complex case, Google had argued that the APIs should not be copyrightable at all under US law. It argued that they're needed by developers to write interoperable software programs. A District Court judge agreed with Google, and Oracle appealed the decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It's that court that ruled in Oracle's favor.