As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge failure that, over thirty years after computer programs were explicitly added to copyright law, it isn't clear to what extent APIs are copyrightable, and we have to watch lawyers argue over strained analogies to chapter titles in Harry Potter books.
I think the process where the legislature writes a vague law and leaves it for the courts to decide what it actually means over a series of cases has fallen down badly here.
> As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge failure that, over thirty years after computer programs were explicitly added to copyright law, it isn't clear to what extent APIs are copyrightable, and we have to watch lawyers argue over strained analogies to chapter titles in Harry Potter books.
It was pretty clear, until this case. What's different here is that Oracle initially had both patent and copyright claims, and appeals to cases involving patents go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) instead of to the appeals court that normally serves the district court that came from (9th Circuit, in this case).
When an appeal goes to CAFC because of patent claims, CAFC handles the entire appeal. Result: instead of this being decided be an appellate court that has extensive experience in copyright (9th Circuit) in this case, and even with similar issues within copyright, it ends up at CAFC which is not nearly as experienced in the relevant areas of law.
CAFC is supposed to follow the precedent from the circuit the appeal came from in matters like this that hitched a ride with a patent issue, which is why there was so much surprise and consternation at their ruling. As far as I can see, most lawyers and legal scholars though 9th Circuit precedent would result in a win for Google.
Personally, I dislike the way other things piggyback their way to CAFC. Besides the problem mentioned above of it putting issues before CAFC that they are not experienced with, it also makes for weird precedent.
Whenever CAFC goes in a different direction from one of the regular appeals courts, you then have a situation where you effectively have two different rules in that area in that circuit, one for when the case also has a patent issue and one for when it does not.
CAFC has continually shown itself as a renegade court which might be corrupted or captured by the "intellectual property" industry. We can presume they will consider everything copyrightable and everything patentable. They've continually tried to circumvent supreme court rulings to make things more patentable. The same can be applied to copyright.
Do you really want our senators, who usually old enough to remember hunting dinosaurs, writing these laws though? At least in court informed experts can be called. Congress only hears from experts if they so choose (surprise: they usually don't so choose)
We could do a better job of getting test cases through the courts that clarify the law.
Or we could invent new mechanisms for turning rulings from specific cases into general principles that people can rely on.
Or we could allow somewhat more hypothetical cases in certain circumstances.
As I understand it, in the US, after a few cases like the Phoenix BIOS one people came to believe that a clean-room reimplementation of an exisiting interface was generally permitted, and so people stopped suing and we didn't get a flow of cases exploring the limits of that principle.
So now when Oracle comes along and points out that the Java API is a lot bigger, and arguably more creative, than the PC BIOS call interface, there isn't an existing case that settles the question.
I can see why there's reluctance to allow people to get courts to decide hypothetical questions, but this case seems to be a decent example of when it would be helpful: if Google had had the option of getting a ruling ahead of time on whether its Java library clone was permitted, it might have saved an awful lot of time and money.
Courts don't decide hypothetical questions. They decide on the case before them, constrained by the precedents of previous cases.
A judge can use examples and hypotheticals (called "obiter dictum"), but that doesn't create a binding precedent and later judges may ignore it, refute it or alternatively convert it into precedent by adopting the reasoning in a decision.
This is really a failure of Congress. SCOTUS shouldn't even be in the business of forcing reinterpretations of these laws - Congress should realize it's being (mis/re)-interpreted and reactively clarify. That's how the system worked until we got a deadlocked legislature and it's how it works in other countries.
In Canada it’s common for the Supreme Court to give parliament time to fix issues with a law before it’s ruled unenforceable. Under the argument a small delay is better than a free for all.
I think the process where the legislature writes a vague law and leaves it for the courts to decide what it actually means over a series of cases has fallen down badly here.