Oracle denied new trial in copyright dispute with Google over Java

A federal court in California denied Oracle another trial in its longstanding copyright infringement dispute with Google over the use of Java code in the Android operating system.

A jury had cleared Google of copyright infringement in May, upholding the company’s stand that its use of 37 Java APIs (application programming interfaces) in its Android mobile operating system was fair use, thus denying Oracle up to $9 billion in damages that it was seeking.

A number of developers and scientists backed Google, saying that APIs, which are the specifications that let programs communicate with each other, could not be copyrighted and any bid to change that would stifle innovation. The administration of President Barack Obama had in its opinion sided with Oracle and said that the APIs can be copyrighted like other computer code.

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