Earlier this month, Google officially filed its appeal to the Supreme Court in the company’s epic battle with Oracle. The move was not a surprise to those who have been following the case, which has now raged on for over 4 years. The implications could be significant for organizations looking to define a long-term mobile strategy.
The fight concerns Java, the language at the center of Google’s Android platform. Oracle, which bought Java creators Sun Microsystems in 2010, attempted to strike a licensing deal with Android for the APIs used to create their now-ubiquitous operating system, before filing suit in August 2010. After trying unsuccessfully to sort out their differences at the district court level, the Google-vs-Oracle fight has reached the highest court in the land, where justices who can barely send an email will debate the right of companies to copyright open-sourced APIs. Continue reading