| > You can simply say, 1) "Oracle owns Java" 2) "APIs are part of Java" 3) "Google uses Java APIs" 4) Therefore, "Google uses something Oracle owns" so Oracle should win this case You could, but neither CAFC nor DoJ did, so that's irrelevant. > Now of course, you can apply some deeper logic to uphold Google's stance. Or you could apply deeper logic and still uphold Oracle's stance. Now, I tend to think the District Court decision here was more correct than the CAFC decision (or the DoJ position), but I don't think as a legal decision its as clearly correct as some people would like to claim -- even though its also the outcome I prefer independent of what is correct under the current law. > But that's the problem --- how "far" or how "deeper" do you expect the higher courts to look into this issue? Fairly deeply on the legal side -- that's what appellate courts exist to do, and they are generally fairly good at it (though they do fail spectacularly at times, but not worse than trial courts, though with higher courts they get more attention for it) -- perhaps less so on the factual side (again, this is by design -- and why appellate courts often resolve legal disputes and send the factual matters back to the trial courts to resolve given the legal clarification.) > Deep enough to understand Google's position? I don't think the CAFC or DoJ failed to understand Google's position. Disagreement isn't the same thing as lack of understanding. |