“Google’s use of the Java API packages was not fair,” appeals court rules

On March 27, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Oracle, finding that Google may owe billions in damages. Nearly 7.5 years after the original lawsuit was filed, the case will now be sent back down to federal court in San Francisco to figure out how much Google should pay. "Google’s use of the Java API packages was not fair," the court ruled. In October 2016 when the case was appealed, after Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems and acquired the rights to Java, it sued Google in 2010. Oracle claimed that Google had infringed copyrights and patents related to Java. Eventually, this lawsuit went to trial in 2012. Oracle initially lost but had part of its case revived on appeal. The sole issue in the second trial was whether Google infringed the APIs in Java, which the appeals court held are copyrighted. In May 2016, a jury found in Google's favor after a second trial, stating that Google’s use of the APIs was protected by "fair use." Oracle has claimed that even though its APIs are free to use, they cannot be used in competing products—the company argues that Google owes nearly $9 billion in damages as a result of using these APIs in Android.