Supreme Court rules in Google's favor over Android software dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Alphabet's (parent company of Google) over the dispute with Oracle over Android Software. The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 2 in Google's favor in the long-running case. According to the lawsuit, Google had used 12,000 lines of codes to build Android OS that was copied from Java API developed by Sun Microsystems. After the formation of Android, Sun Microsystems got acquired by Oracle. Interestingly, Sun Microsystems had no problems with Google copying its code, but Oracle had.

Oracle claimed that Google owed it $9 billion, while Google denied any payment as the code comes under fair usage policy and therefore not subject to copyright. Oracle has sued Google over the use of its code and won its case twice. But this time, the specialized U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made the decision in favor of Google. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said Google's copying of the API constituted a "fair use of that material."  Google used the API to let Java programmers build Android apps.

Silicon Valley's software industry has welcomed the decision. Tech industry groups said Oracle's copyright infringement claim threatened to undercut widely used practices involved in creating many kinds of software. "After more than a decade of litigation, this ruling is a win for interoperability, copyright principles, and the future of innovation," said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, in a press release.