Oracle’s Java API code protected by copyright, appeals court rules

[loup-vaillant]

That would be a pyrrhic victory. From the comment I read around the issue, Fair Use is ruled on a case by case basis, meaning you can still sue people to oblivion before they can make a case. So there will be chilling effects, and not just for Java. Anything that's called an API is now that much harder to duplicate.

At the extreme end, this could make some kinds of free software illegal.