Supreme Court denies review of Google v. Oracle API copyright case [pdf]

I don't want to claim that the law is a trivial matter and that it could be replaced with software, but I do think our legal system could be greatly enhanced with some ideas in math and software development. There are always going to be ambiguity in legal matters, but that doesn't mean we can't greatly reduce that ambiguity with good tools.

I know this is a really tall order, but one idea in particular I'd like to see is the introduction of some sort of unit testing or model checking during the legislative process where legal scenarios are parameterized and enumerated to act as a guide for legislators, lawyers and judges. I'd love to see something like Alloy (http://alloy.mit.edu/alloy/) be implemented in a way that non-programmers could use to model check things like bylaws by guiding the user through ambiguous and conflicting scenarios. I'm not suggesting we try to make laws satisfiable. What I am suggesting is that we model them in a way that highlight and distinguish the laws that are poorly crafted from those which are clearly interpreted.

Legal ambiguity is really expensive weight on our society. Not only does this sort of ruling create investment uncertainty, it benefits incumbents who can buy armies of lawyers and intimidate competitors with drawn out lawsuits. Our legal system should be the great equalizer, but it will never be as long as we let judges and lawyers convince us to resign that our current system "is as good as it gets".

At that point, if SCOTUS does not take up an appeal, the computer science world will have a big problem. If APIs are copyrighted and reimplementing libraries violates copyright, then:

What of all the projects that have implemented LIBC, and used glibc's API and headers? e.g.: Is musl now GPL?

What of any OS or project that has implemented a POSIX layer? (Is this the decision SCO needed to finally sue someone for Linux finally violating SCO's copyright?)

What of any project that implements x-plat APIs? As another comment pointed out, Microsoft's Project Islandwood re-implements iOS APIs. But Xamarin, Cordova and other projects all ingest APIs and reconfigure them to make them accessible on multiple platforms. Are they contaminated by copyright now?

If the Federal Circuit decision stands, software might have finally encountered the lump it can't digest as it eats the world.

In my opinion implementing someone else's API should be allowed under the fair use provision of the copyright law. This is needed so that whoever came up with the API does not hoard applications developed for the API and stifle innovation and competition at the platform level, as Microsoft did for many years with the Win32 API.

In the late 1970s, Relational Software, Inc. (now Oracle Corporation) saw the potential of the concepts described by Codd, Chamberlin, and Boyce, and developed their own SQL-based RDBMS with aspirations of selling it to the U.S. Navy, Central Intelligence Agency, and other U.S. government agencies. In June 1979, Relational Software, Inc. introduced the first commercially available implementation of SQL, Oracle V2 (Version2) for VAX computers.

Does IBM have a case to go after Oracle for using the SQL API SSO in their database products?

    private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex {
        if (fromIndex > toIndex)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
                ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
        if (fromIndex < 0) 
            throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
        if (toIndex > arrayLen) 
            throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
    }

On the issue of "structure, sequence, and organization", Google copied the class and method names from Java, so that their reimplementation of Java, Dalvik, would be interoperable with existing Java programs and Java programmers' habits. Judge Alsup ruled that is a "command structure, a system or method of operation" and not copyrightable 17 USC 102(b) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/102) (http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf). This, too, was overturned by the district court.

There is a fairly key difference here between Judge Alsup and the District judges. Part-way through the trial, Alsup revealed that he has actually programmed; that he understood what was going on, and would not be easily fooled. At the time, this being revealed was a dramatic event.

The District judges, however, hold no such distinction. It is no surprise, then, that it was them, and not Alsup, who made a ruling that to actual programmers is prima facie unreasonable and dangerous. They are outsiders. If you read their opinion (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/US_Court_of_Appeals_Federa...) you can see little errors in terminology creep in to reveal their lack of background and understanding. And, lacking that understanding, I don't see how they can be seen as having moral authority. They only have legal authority, and the ability to do damage with it.

(EDIT: This was incorrect; the original case was Oracle v Google but the appeal is the reverse.)