While the Apple vs Samsung lawsuit was probably one of the biggest lawsuits in the tech scene in the past few years, there was actually another lawsuit taking place that did not quite get the same publicity, and that was Google vs Oracle, in which the later claimed that Google owed them as much as $9.3 billion for using Java in their Android operating system.
According to Oracle, they claimed that Google used Java’s APIs without their permission, while Google claimed that APIs could not gain any kind of protection from the copyright law. Now there has been a bit of back and forth but ultimately it looks like Google prevailed, because according to the jury, they found that Google does not owe Oracle anything.
Obviously this is good news for Google who has managed to avoid paying a whopping $9.3 billion in damages to Oracle had they lost. However there is even more good news in the sense that with this case, it has set a precedent and the rules in which what programmers can borrow in terms of APIs for their own work.
Had Oracle emerged the victor, it would have made it harder for programmers to come up with new software as they might be too worried about the legalities behind their creations, which means that many a great piece of software could never have been made as programmers might pass on it due to fear of litigation. That being said this case is far from over as Oracle is well within their rights to appeal it, meaning that it could potentially drag on for years to come.
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