Google tries to destroy Oracle's case, asks for judgment on Java copyrights

With the first phase of the blockbuster Oracle/Google case nearly headed to the jury, Google asked the court for a judgment that would invalidate at least a portion of the copyrights Oracle claims over Java APIs.

Google's motion asks for a "judgment as a matter of law that the names and declarations from the 37 API (application programming interface) packages that appear in the Android source code are not copyrightable." Google criticized "Oracle claims that Google’s implementing source code is a derivative work of Oracle’s English-language descriptions because Google’s source code does the things that the English descriptions describe." Google argued that the source code and object code for implementing Oracle's APIs are not derivative works of the copyrighted work as a whole. Further, Google said the alleged copying of Java code is "de minimus," or insignificant, and "thus non-actionable."