- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit says Google’s (GOOG, GOOGL) use of Oracle’s (NYSE:ORCL) Java platform wasn’t protected under fair-use copyright law.
- The decision reignites the multibillion-dollar copyright battle that goes back to 2012 when a jury decided that Google didn’t infringe Oracle patents by using Java to build the Android operating system. The judge said the Java APIs structure wasn’t copyrightable.
- In 2014, the Federal Circuit ruled in Oracle’s favor on whether the patents were copyrightable but sent the fair use issue to the district court.
- A second trial started in 2016, and the jury sided with Google on the fair use issue.
- Oracle shares are down 0.8%.
- GOOG shares are down 0.9%.
- Update with more info: The case will now go back to a U.S. judge in San Francisco for a trial to determine how much Google needs to pay Oracle, which previously sought $9B.
- Now read: Smartsheet Seeks 0 Million In U.S. IPO
Original article