This Is Hopefully My Last Amicus Brief In Oracle v. Google

Today EFF filed what is hopefully my last amicus brief in the long running case of Oracle v. Google.  The nearly 10-year old case is now called Google v. Oracle, because of the U.S. Supreme Court's rule that changes the order of the parties when the Court grants a losing defendant's review of a lower court decision.  Here, Google sought review of two terrible decisions by the Federal Circuit about copyrightability and fair use of computer interfaces.

EFF's first brief explains how Congress set up the patent and copyright system to have separate regimes for patentable subject matter vs. copyrightable subject matter.  The brief then explains how the courts can analyze aspects of computer software to determine whether they are copyrightable--in this case, the Java API declarations are not copyrightable.  The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in March 2020, and decide the case by June.

EFF's amicus brief was one of 27 amicus briefs supporting Google.  The Supreme Court briefs in the case can be found on EFF's case page or on the Supreme Court docket.