Re:Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
by kmeisthax on Monday April 05, 2021 @12:28PM
(#26701089)
There's already Ninth Circuit precedent in favor of it. For example, Sony tried to sue two commercial PlayStation emulator developers and the Ninth rejected the lawsuit on all counts (and one of those cases is even cited in this opinion).
The court has to talk about programmer skills because Android (at least, the versions before they switched to OpenJDK) was not entirely source- or binary-compatible with Java SE programs. In fact, the reason why they couldn't license Java SE was that Sun insisted on Android being locked into compatibility in the first place. So this entirely represents an expansion of existing fair use precedent: now, not only does fair use apply to full reimplementations for the sake of interoperability, but also partial reimplementations made for the sake of programmer convenience.
The court has to talk about programmer skills because Android (at least, the versions before they switched to OpenJDK) was not entirely source- or binary-compatible with Java SE programs. In fact, the reason why they couldn't license Java SE was that Sun insisted on Android being locked into compatibility in the first place. So this entirely represents an expansion of existing fair use precedent: now, not only does fair use apply to full reimplementations for the sake of interoperability, but also partial reimplementations made for the sake of programmer convenience.