Google v Oracle: bad news for API developers 06-04-2021 10-01-2017 By leaning on unusual analogies the US Supreme Court has created unsettling precedents for software developers, argues Bill Frankel of Brinks Gilson & Lione. In a 6-2 decision, with Justice Stephen Breyer authoring the majority opinion, the Supreme Court has reversed the Federal Circuit’s decision and found that Google’s use of 11,500 lines of the Java SE Application Programming Interface (API) to tailor its Android platform to smartphone technology was fair use under copyright law. As a consequence of this protracted litigation, the Supreme Court was presented with two principal issues: 1) whether the Java SE declaring code at issue was copyrightable; and 2) whether Google’s taking of the code constituted a “fair use” freeing Google of copyright infringement liability.