INTELLECTUAL PROPERT Y
Three Key IP Cases to Watch This Year By MICHAEL CICERO
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copyright case before the Supreme Court, Google v. Oracle, looms large on the list of cases likely to alter the intellectual property landscape. A decision is expected in June. The Arthrex patent case, with a high court decision expected in June as well, threatens the very existence of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In a third patent case, a patentee seeks Supreme Court review of controversial appellate court decisions. These are the key cases to watch in 2021. Google v. Oracle should produce a landmark decision on the doctrine of fair use, and possibly on both fair use and the copyright eligibility of computer programs. Sun Microsystems developed
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the Java platform for computer programming in the 1990s. Google v. Oracle centers on Application Program Interface (API) packages written for Sun’s Java 2 Standard Edition, which enable programmers to use pre-written code to incorporate functions into their programs without writing new code. In 2005, Google acquired Android to develop a software program for mobile devices. Google and Sun discussed the possibility of Google taking a license for such development, but those negotiations fell through. Following the failed negotiations, Google copied 37 Java API packages, amounting to 11,500 lines of copyrighted code. Google also copied the structure,
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sequence and organization of those packages, but wrote its own implementing code for the functions the packages performed. In 2007, Google announced the availability of the Android software platform for mobile devices, the first of which were sold in 2008. Since then, Android reportedly generated over $42 billion in advertising revenue. In 2009, Sun sued Google in a California federal district court for both patent and copyright infringement, seeking a staggering $8.8 billion in damages. Google raised defenses of fair use under the Copyright Act, and argued that the API packages weren’t eligible for copyright protection, among other contentions. Google’s fair BACK TO CONTENTS
