There is a huge difference: in this case the Vmware product does include linux kernel code. So there's definitely some reproduction and distribution of copyrighted parts even excluding the use of APIs.

I don't see the commonalities except that both are about copyright. Has there been any information that the kernel API is being claimed to be copyrighted, or header files, or are VMWare claiming that no copyrighted code has actually been distributed?

The above extract mention "substantial amount of kernel code". If that code is implemented algorithms, data structure or full kernel features, then this case has nothing in common with the core issue between Oracle and Google.