Google, Oracle meet in copyright clash at Supreme Court
Supreme Court justices discussed restaurant menus, computer keyboards, songs and even the periodic table Wednesday in trying to resolve a copyright dispute between tech giants Google and Oracle.
The justices were hearing arguments Wednesday in a dispute that is worth billions and important to the future of software. It wasn’t clear how the justices would rule, but some of the justices seemed at least concerned about what a ruling for Oracle could mean.
The case before the justices has to do with Google’s creation of the Android operating system now used on the vast majority of smartphones worldwide. Google says that to create Android, which was released in 2007, it wrote millions of lines of new computer code. But it also used 11,330 lines of code and an organization that’s part of Oracle’s Java platform.
Google has defended its actions, saying what it did is longsettled, common practice in the industry, a practice that has been good for technical progress. But Oracle says Google “committed an egregious act of plagiarism” and sued, seeking more than $8 billion. Chief Justice John Roberts expressed some skepticism, telling Oracle lawyer Joshua Rosenkranz to imagine opening a new restaurant and creating a menu.
“Of course you’re going to have, you know, appetizers first, then entrees and then desserts. Now you shouldn’t have to worry about whether that organization is copyrighted,” Roberts said.