Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL), which bought over Sun Microsystems, won the appeal over Google Inc, on the claim that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) copied more than 37 Java APIs and 11 lines of source code while developing its Android operating system. Oracle claims that its intellectual property has been misused. Circuit Judge Kathleen O’Malley of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington wrote the opinion, and as of now, Oracle is seeking around $1 billion in its copyright claims. This decision came just before the weekend and all eyes are on how the shares of both the giants will be affected as on 05/12/2014 when NASDAQ opens.
The decision comes as a major blow to the principles of ethical software usage. Previously in 2012, Judge William Alsup dismissed Oracle’s claims. He compared the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to books in a library. Considering an analogy, books are not restricted with who read them or when they can be read. Duplication is indeed prohibited. He goes on to explain that too. He maintained that duplication of the command structure was necessary for interoperability. Among the 37 APIs, the Java and Android libraries are organized in a similar manner, but all the chapters in Android have been designed for various implementations, totally different from Java. 97% of the source codes in the API packages are different. The overlapping 3% includes packages, methods and class names and these form the basis for Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)’s claims. The coup took an ugly turn when Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) tried erasure of the blog of Sun’s CEO who apparently was happy over the fact that Android was using Java APIs. The Silicon Valley is waiting with bated breaths for further developments as this ruling could possibly affect current software principles.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) compensating Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) $1 billion may not pose a huge change to its shares. Google’s shares closed on Friday at $518.73, with a growth of 1.51%. Oracle, on the other hand stands at $41.04, gaining 0.42%. However, speaking about API, it is one of the basic software components used since the development of programming to make programs talk to each other. The decision may not affect Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) much, since its latest development of ‘Google Now’ is still making waves. But it is sure that the markets of the smaller software companies that write programs for their clients will be affected. We await the market opening for more updates.
