Google found not guilty of infringing copyright on Oracle's Java APIs

Java-savvy judge sets new precedent as Android is declared totally legal

The Java API infringement issue that was left over from last week's Google and Oracle lawsuit has ended in Google's favour, as the deferred verdict sees Google not guilty of embedding unlicensed lines of code in its Android platform.

The decision marks the final disappointment for Oracle, the jury's original decision on 23 May already having declared that Android did not infringe on Java copyright overall, thus demolishing Oracle's initial case against the search engine giant.

The deferred decision reached yesterday means that the nine particular lines of Java code Oracle's case focused on are now considered, though clearly to be of Java origin, not even susceptible to copyright in the first place.

Judge William Alsup, who reportedly learned to programme in Java to help him understand the case, explained his logic in his published ruling:

"So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical."

Alsup went on to more directly criticise Oracle in his conclusions, accusing the company of having "made much of nine lines of code that crept into both Android and Java. This circumstance is so innocuous and overblown by Oracle that the actual facts, as found herein by the judge, will be set forth below for the benefit of the court of appeals."

It has been widely reported that Oracle intends to appeal.

Oracle is still able to pursue damages for other copyright infringements found in the case, but these are limited by statute to a maximum of $150,000 (£97,600), which is a poor return on the millions of pounds the company has presumably spent on legal fees.