Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google LLC
| Decision Date | 27 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | 2017-1118, 2017-1202 |
| Parties | ORACLE AMERICA, INC., Plaintiff–Appellant v. GOOGLE LLC, Defendant–Cross–Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit |
E. Joshua Rosenkranz, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, New York, NY, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by Peter A. Bicks, Matthew Lee Bush, Andrew D. Silverman, Lisa Simpson ; Melanie L. Bostwick, Kelsi Brown Corkran, Mark S. Davies, Jeremy Peterman, Washington, DC; Annette Louise Hurst, San Francisco, CA; Dale M. Cendali, Joshua L. Simmons, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, New York, NY; Ruchika Agrawal, Dorian Estelle Daley, Deborah Kay Miller, Matthew Sarboraria, Oracle America, Inc., Redwood Shores, CA.
Daryl Joseffer, King & Spalding LLP, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-cross-appellant. Also represented by Bruce William Baber, Atlanta, GA; Christa M. Anderson, Steven A. Hirsch, Michael Soonuk Kwun, Reid P. Mullen, Robert A. Van Nest, Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, San Francisco, CA; Renny F. Hwang, Google LLC, Mountain View, CA.
Kenneth L. Doroshow, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae The Copyright Alliance. Also represented by Erica Lauren Ross.
Daniel J. Brooks, Scarola Malone & Zubatov LLP, New York, NY, for amicus curiae New York Intellectual Property Law Association. Also represented by Charles R. Macedo, Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP, New York, NY; Annemarie Hassett, NYU School of Law, New York, NY.
Jared Bobrow, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Redwood Shores, CA, for amici curiae Eugene H. Spafford, Zhi Ding, Adam Porter, Ken Castleman. Also represented by Amanda Branch, Aaron Y. Huang.
Steven Thomas Cottreau, Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells LLP, Washington, DC, for amici curiae Scott McNealy, Brian Sutphin.
Marc Robert Lewis, Lewis & Llewellyn LLP, San Francisco, CA, for amicus curiae Ralph Oman. Also represented by Evangeline Zimmerman Burbidge.
Robert H. Rotstein, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for amici curiae Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., Independent Film & Television Alliance. Also represented by J. Matthew Williams, Washington, DC.
Duncan W. Crabtree–Ireland, SAG–AFTRA, Los Angeles, CA, for amicus curiae Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
William M. Jay, Goodwin Procter LLP, Washington, DC, for amici curiae Recording Industry Association of America, Association of American Publishers. Also represented by Andrew Kim. Recording Industry Association of America also represented by George M. Borkowski, Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, LLP, Los Angeles, CA.
Rebecca Murphy Thompson, Competitive Carriers Association, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae Competitive Carriers Association.
Antigone Gabriella Peyton, Protorae Law PLLC, Tysons, VA, for amici curiae Sandra Aistars, Matthew Barblan, Jon A. Baumgarten, Stephen Carlisle, Jon M. Garon, Hugh Hansen, Devlin Hartline, Jiarui Liu, Adam Mossoff, Raymond T. Nimmer, Eric Priest, Sean M. O'Connor, Mark F. Schultz.
Lindsay Warren Bowen, Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP, New York, NY, for amici curiae PACA, Digital Media Licensing Association, Inc., Graphic Artists Guild, National Press Photographers Association, North American Nature Photography Association, American Society of Media Photographers, Inc., American Photographic Artists, Professional Photographers of America. Also represented by Scott J. Sholder.
Richard L. Rainey, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae BSA | The Software Alliance. Also represented by Peter Andrew Swanson.
Jonathan Band, Jonathan Band PLLC, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae Computer & Communications Industry Association. Also represented by Matthew Schruers, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Washington, DC.
Michael Barclay, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA, for amici curiae Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge. Also represented by Mitchell L. Stoltz.
Marcia Hofmann, Zeitgeist Law PC, San Francisco, CA, for amicus curiae Mozilla Corporation.
Richard M. Brunell, American Antitrust Institute, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae American Antitrust Institute. Also represented by Shubha Ghosh, Syracuse University College of Law, Syracuse, NY.
Jeffrey A. Lamken, MoloLamken LLP, Washington, DC, for amici curiae Microsoft Corp., Red Hat, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. Also represented by Rayiner Hashem, Michael Gregory Pattillo, Jr. ; Lisa Wang Bohl, Chicago, IL.
Jason Michael Schultz, NYU School of Law, New York, NY, for amici curiae Timothy K. Armstrong, Cark D. Asay, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Ann Bartow, Oren Bracha, Annemarie Bridy, Dan L. Burk, Michael A. Carrier, Michael W. Carroll, Andrew Chin, Julie E. Cohen, Kevin Collins, Rebecca Curtin, Ben Depoorter, Roger Allan Ford, Brian L. Frye, Jim Gibson, Eric Goldman, James Grimmelmann, Peter Jaszi, Yvette Joy Liebesman, Jessica Litman, Brian J. Love, Michael J. Madison, Mark. P. McKenna, Joseph Scott Miller, Deirdre K. Mulligan, Tyler T. Ochoa, Aaron Perzanowski, Victoria F. Phillips, Arti K. Rai, Jerome H. Reichman, Michael Rustad, Matthew Sag, Pamela Samuelson, Jessica Sibley, Joshua David Sarnoff, Lea Shaver, Christopher Jon Sprigman, Katherine J. Strandburg, Rebecca Tushnet, Jennifer M. Urban.
Phillip R. Malone, Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA, for amici curiae Harold Abelson, Tom Ball, Brian Behlendorf, Gordon Bell, Jon Bentley, Matthew Bishop, Joshua Bloch, Dan Boneh, Gilad Bracha, Eric Brewer, Frederick Brooks, Rick Cattell, Vinton G. Cerf, William Cook, Mark Davis, Miguel de Icaza, Jeffrey Dean, L. Peter Deutsch, Whitfield Diffie, David L. Dill, Lester Earnest, Brendan Eich, Dawson Engler, Martin Fowler, Neal Gafter, Robert Harper, John Hennessy, Tom Jennings, Alan Kay, Brian Kernighan, David Klausner, Ray Kurzweil, Kin Lane, Ed Lazowska, Doug Lea, Bob Lee, Sheng Liang, Barbara Liskov, Paul Menchini, Andrew W. Moore, James H. Morris, Peter Norvig, Martin Odersky, Tim Paterson, David Patterson, Alex Payne, Tim Peierls, Simon Phipps, Bill Pugh, Ronald L. Rivest, Curtis Schroeder, Robert Sedgewick, Mary Shaw, Barbara Simons, Dave Snigier, Alfred Z. Spector, Bjarne Stroustrup, Gerald Jay Sussman, Ivan E. Sutherland, Andrew Tanenbaum, Brad Templeton, Ken Thompson, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Andrew Tridgell, Jeffrey Ullman, Andries Van Dam, Guido Van Rossum, John Villasenor, Jan Vitek, Philip Wadler, James H. Waldo, Daniel S. Wallach, Peter J. Weinberger, Steve Wozniak, Frank Yellin. Also represented by Jeffrey Theodore Pearlman.
Mark A. Lemley, Durie Tangri LLP, San Francisco, CA, for amici curiae Engine Advocacy, The App Developers Alliance, GitHub, Inc. Also represented by Joseph Gratz, Clement Roberts.
Before O'Malley, Plager, and Taranto, Circuit Judges.
This copyright case returns to us after a second jury trial, this one focusing on the defense of fair use. Oracle America, Inc. ("Oracle") filed suit against Google Inc. ("Google")1 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that Google's unauthorized use of 37 packages of Oracle's Java application programming interface ("API packages") in its Android operating system infringed Oracle's patents and copyrights.
At the first trial, the jury found that Google infringed Oracle's copyrights in the Java Standard Edition platform, but deadlocked on the question of whether Google's copying was a fair use.2 After the verdict, however, the district court found that the API packages were not copyrightable as a matter of law and entered judgment for Google. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc ., 872 F.Supp.2d 974 (N.D. Cal. 2012). Oracle appealed that determination to this court, and we reversed, finding that declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization ("SSO") of the Java API packages are entitled to copyright protection. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc ., 750 F.3d 1339, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2014). We remanded with instructions to reinstate the jury's infringement verdict and for further proceedings on Google's fair use defense and, if appropriate, on damages. Id . at 1381.
Google subsequently filed a petition for certiorari on the copyrightability determination. The Supreme Court called for the views of the Solicitor General, who expressed agreement with our determination and recommended denying review. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in 2015. Google Inc. v. Oracle Am., Inc ., ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2887, 192 L.Ed.2d 948 (2015) (Mem.).
At the second jury trial, Google prevailed on its fair use defense. After the jury verdict, the district court denied Oracle's motion for judgment as a matter of law ("JMOL") and entered final judgment in favor of Google. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc ., No. C 10-03561, 2016 WL 3181206 (N.D. Cal. June 8, 2016) ("Order Denying JMOL "); Final Judgment, Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc ., No. 3:10-cv-3561 (N.D. Cal. June 8, 2016), ECF No. 1989. Oracle filed a renewed motion for JMOL and separately moved for a new trial. The district court denied both motions in a single order. Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc ., No. C 10-03561, 2016 WL 5393938 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 27, 2016) ("Order Denying Renewed JMOL/New Trial "). Consistent with these determinations, no damages verdict was rendered.
Oracle now appeals from the district court's final judgment and its decisions denying Oracle's motions for JMOL and motion for a new trial. Google cross-appeals from the final judgment purportedly to "preserv[e] its claim that the declarations/SSO are not protected by copyright law," but advances no argument for why this court can or should revisit our prior decision on copyrightability. Cross–Appellant Br. 83.
Because we conclude that Google's use of the Java API packages was not fair as a matter of law, we reverse the district court's decisions denying Oracle's motions for JMOL and remand for a trial on damages. We also dismiss Google's cross-appeal.
Oracle's predecessor, Sun...
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