Legalese - Law Radio Podcast

Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc.

Facts of the case

When Google implemented its Android Operating System (Android OS), it wrote its own programming language based on Java, which is owned by Oracle. To facilitate developers writing their own programs for Android OS, Google’s version used the same names, organization, and functionality as Java's Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement, but the federal district judge held that APIs are not subject to copyright because permitting a private entity to own the copyright to a programming language would stifle innovation and collaboration, contrary to the goals of copyright. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the lower court, finding that the Java APIs are copyrightable but leaving open the possibility of a fair use defense. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Google’s petition for certiorari.

Upon remand to the district court, a jury found that Google's use of the Java API was fair use. Oracle appealed, and the Federal Circuit again reversed the lower court. The Federal Circuit held that Google's use was not fair as a matter of law.

Question

1. Does copyright protection extend to a software interface? 
2. If so, does the petitioner’s use of a software interface in the context of creating a new computer program constitute fair use?

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Facts of the case

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) against a constitutional challenge by characterizing the penalty for not buying health insurance as a tax, which Congress has the power to impose. In 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted an amendment to the ACA that set the penalty for not buying health insurance to zero, but it left the rest of the ACA in place. Texas and several other states and individuals filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the individual mandate again, arguing that because the penalty was zero, it can no longer be characterized as a tax and is therefore unconstitutional. California and several other states joined the lawsuit to defend the individual mandate.

The federal district court held that the individual mandate is now unconstitutional and that as a result, the entire ACA is invalidated because the individual mandate cannot be “severed” from the rest of the Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s conclusion but remanded the case for reconsideration of whether any part of the ACA survives in the absence of the individual mandate. The Supreme Court granted California’s petition for review, as well as Texas’s cross-petition for review.

Question

Is the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which now has a penalty of zero for not buying health insurance, now unconstitutional?

If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, is it severable from the remainder of the ACA?

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Today's historic hearing on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) seemed to indicate that the conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court will side with the Trump administration to invalidate the Obama era program.  However, with Chief Justice John Roberts, there is an unpredictable wild card.  Whatever the Court decides, the consequences will be earth shattering.