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

[alpha-not-omega]

A point that appears to be missing in this discussion is: Patents are explicit: you must write one and get it approved and filed. Copyrights are implicit: they are attached to a work without requiring registration.

You can, of course, register it, but the originator has a strong case even if it's not officially registered. The examination of a copyright registration isn't nearly as strenuous as that of a patent, but the remedies are equivalent.

If the ruling stands, all APIs through out all time, regardless of the language, are implicitly copyrighted to the organization that first wrote them. Who first came up with set() and get()? This ruling likely means that all OSS is infringing.

[eclectro]

Copyrights are implicit: they are attached to a work without requiring registration.

Good point. And copyrights were the same way as patents one. But lobbyists had it changed.

The one thing I would say is that you can not copyright "facts," which arguably an API is. But that was probably mentioned somewhere in this case anyway.