cyckV4

Methods of Operation: Introduction to Computer Software 361
Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc.
750 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2014)
O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge.
This copyright dispute involves 37 packages of computer source code. The parties
have often referred to these groups of computer programs, individually or collectively,
as “application programming interfaces,” or API packages, but it is their content, not
their name, that matters. The predecessor of Oracle America, Inc. (“Oracle”) wrote these
and other API packages in the Java programming language, and Oracle licenses them on
various terms for others to use. Many software developers use the Java language, as well
as Oracle’s API packages, to write applications (commonly referred to as “apps”) for
desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other devices.
Oracle filed suit against Google Inc. (“Google”) in the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California, alleging that Google’s Android mobile operating
system infringed Oracle’s patents and copyrights. . . . [T]he district court issued its
decision on copyrightability, finding that the replicated elements of the 37 API
packages—including the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization—
were not subject to copyright protection. . . . Oracle asserts that all of the trial court’s
conclusions regarding copyrightability are erroneous. Oracle argues that its Java API
packages are entitled to protection under the Copyright Act because they are expressive
and could have been written and organized in any number of ways to achieve the same
functions. Specifically, Oracle argues that the district court erred when it: (1) concluded
that each line of declaring code is uncopyrightable because the idea and expression have
merged; (2) found the declaring code uncopyrightable because it employs short phrases;
(3) found all aspects of the SSO devoid of protection as a “method of operation” under
17 U.S.C. § 102(b); and (4) invoked Google’s “interoperability” concerns in the
copyrightability analysis. For the reasons explained below, we agree with Oracle on each
point. Because we conclude that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and
organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection, we reverse the
district court’s copyrightability determination. . . .
The district court found that the structure, sequence, and organization [“SSO”] of
the Java API packages is creative and original, but nevertheless held that it is a “system
or method of operation . . . and, therefore, cannot be copyrighted” under 17 U.S.C.
§ 102(b). In reaching this conclusion, the district court seems to have relied upon
language contained in a First Circuit decision: Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland
International, Inc. . . .
[T]he Ninth Circuit has not adopted the court’s “method of operation” reasoning
in Lotus, and we conclude that it is inconsistent with binding precedent. Specifically, we
find that Lotus is inconsistent with Ninth Circuit case law recognizing that the structure,
sequence, and organization of a computer program is eligible for copyright protection
where it qualifies as an expression of an idea, rather than the idea itself. And, while the
court in Lotus held “that expression that is part of a `method of operation’ cannot be
copyrighted,” this court—applying Ninth Circuit law—reached the exact opposite
conclusion, finding that copyright protects “the expression of [a] process or method.”
Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of Am., Inc., 975 F.2d 832, 839 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
We find, moreover, that the hard and fast rule set down in Lotus and employed by
the district court here— i.e., that elements which perform a function can never be
copyrightable—is at odds with the Ninth Circuit’s endorsement of the abstraction-