Oracle loses yet another appeal against Google in Java API case

Judge throws out case and says Oracle lawyers acted in a "mischievous" way

Oracle has lost yet another appeal in its long-running case against Google over the latter's use of Java APIs, for which Oracle is demanding as much as $9.3bn in compensation.

In this latest appeal, Oracle had accused Google of failing to disclose its intent to develop tools to run Android on the desktop using the Android App Runtime for Chrome (ARC). It claimed that this invalidated Google's previous argument that its use of Java APIs was limited to mobile devices and could be considered fair use.

However, San Francisco District Court Judge William Aslup denied Oracle's motion, stating that Oracle and Google had agreed that the case was only concerned with how Java APIs were used in Android smartphones and tablets.

"It may well be true that the use of the copyrighted APIs in ARC++ (or any other later use) will not qualify as a fair use, but that will not and does not mean that Google's argument on transformative use as to the original uses on trial (smartphone and tablets) was improper," he said.

"That Oracle failed to detect the ARC++ documents in its possession had no consequence with the defined scope of our trials," he added.

Judge Alsup also claimed that Oracle laywers had been mischievously picking and choosing which data in the case should be used. He emphasised that while the ARC++ information may be useful to the company's appeal, a document had been left out of the original trial to back up Google's claim that Sun Microsystems (which was acquired by Oracle) had offered an open Java API years earlier.

"Sun itself had given away Java (including all of the lines of code in suit) in 2008 via its open-source OpenJDK. In 2015, Google used OpenJDK to reimplement the Java APIs for the latest release of Android, which it called Nougat," Alsup stated.

"Google wished to use this evidence under the fourth fair use factor to show that its infringement did no more market harm than Sun itself had already invited via its own OpenJDK release."

In the long-running battle between the firms, Oracle claimed that Google generated revenues of $42.35bn from Android, in part from apps downloaded from the Google Play store, but largely from selling adverts, location and other data that Android discloses to Google.

Oracle argued that Google's actions had undermined its Java licensing market as licensees threatened to use Android or a fork of Android for free.

In turn, Google argued that APIs had never been subject to copyright as software vendors need to access them to achieve interoperability between software products.

It's likely that this won't be the last we'll hear of the case.