Sadie's point of view: Google wins the case, is the intellectual property risk alert in software compatibility lifted?

In the process of developing Android, Google copied 0.4 per cent of Oracle's Java API code for compatibility and was awarded $8.8 billion. This kind of behavior is more common in software development, especially in software companies at a backwardness disadvantage, and how to identify it is related to the development of the whole software industry, so this case is called an epic intellectual property dispute in the industry. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Google constitutes fair use. The intellectual property Research Institute of Sadie Research Institute believes that there is uncertainty in the identification of such acts, the positive impact on the domestic software industry can not be exaggerated, and it is still necessary to prevent and control related intellectual property risks.

First, the focus question is answered "vaguely". The intellectual property risk in software compatibility still exists.

The reason for the protracted "marathon" lawsuit, which lasts for 10 years, is that not only the two sides of the lawsuit have different opinions on whether API is protected by copyright, but there are also fundamental differences in the understanding of US court judges at all levels. Accordingly, there is no consensus among judges on whether Google's copying open source Java API code without Oracle's permission is fair use, and even the U.S. Supreme Court has not reached a clear conclusion.

It is not clear whether API is protected by copyright. The court of first instance ruled in Google's favor that the API code was not protected by copyright law; the decision was overturned in the appeal court ruling, which shows that the copyright protection issue of API is highly controversial in the industry. Oracle believes that API is an intellectual property asset that developers should own, and protecting the copyright of API is conducive to encouraging innovation; Google believes that an open and operable computer language is an indispensable basic principle of software development, and if it is recognized that API is protected by copyright, many developers may face a series of copyright disputes. Google asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether API was protected by copyright, but it was rejected by the Supreme Court, so it is unclear in the industry whether API is protected by copyright.

"fair use" has strict restrictions on the purpose. Oracle said in the lawsuit that its API can be provided to program developers free of charge, but cannot be applied to rival platforms and embedded in electronic devices for sale, and Google's use of API is not "fair use". In response, Google argues that its Android system does not charge customers directly and that its use of Oracle-related software code is protected by "fair use" rules. As to whether it belongs to "fair use", there are differences in the opinions of the court of the first instance and the second instance (including the appeal procedure), and both parties have their own outcome. The US Supreme Court held in the final judgment that "Google's copying of API includes only those lines of code needed to enable programmers to use their accumulated talents in new, transformational programs", which constitutes a "fair use" behavior. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that the United States Supreme Court has strict restrictions on the composition of "fair use". In judicial practice, it is necessary to analyze specific cases for which code replication behavior can be regarded as the "fair use" of programmers' experience in developing new and transformational programs.

The precedent status of this case has not been established. Software makers, including Microsoft, rejoiced at Google's victory in the Supreme Court. However, although six judges in the Supreme Court judgment agreed, two judges still raised objections. "the court majority opinion skipped 'half of the relevant legal provisions' by choosing not to analyze copyright issues, and denied the fact that Google's use was' unreasonable'," the objection said. The United States is a country of case law, and the legal rules in a judgment are not only applicable to the case, but also often apply as a precedent to cases under the jurisdiction of the court or lower courts. However, the Supreme Court of the United States made it clear that the ruling was "different" and did not establish its jurisprudential status, and there were uncertainties in how to deal with the relevant litigation in the future. Moreover, even if the case is regarded as a precedent, its reference significance to the judicial practice of our country is also unknown. Therefore, although Google wins the case, the positive impact of the case on China's software industry is very limited, we should not be blindly optimistic, and we should not relax our vigilance against the intellectual property risks involved in software compatibility.

Second, the sources of intellectual property risks in software compatibility are diversified, and relevant domestic enterprises face the potential risks of intellectual property litigation.

China's software industry is still at an obvious disadvantage compared with developed countries, and the markets of industrial software and database software as basic software and some other software products are still basically monopolized by the international giants of the United States and the European Union, and compatible development is difficult to avoid completely. it is necessary to sort out and analyze and guard against the intellectual property risks in compatibility.

It is hard to avoid the trouble of citing header files. Even if enterprises have developed hardware and software drivers and function libraries with independent intellectual property rights, in order to be compatible with existing products in the market and facilitate users of old products to upgrade, it is still necessary to keep the corresponding function interface of the new product consistent with the old product, and have to use the header file provided by the old product manufacturer, which leads to the problem of intellectual property risk in the content reference of the header file. Especially when a manufacturer's software product has occupied a monopoly position in the market, it happens more often, because the header file has become the de facto interface standard for such products.

Intel of the United States has accused Shenzhen Dongjin Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Dongjin Company for short) of infringing its copyright on the headers of a certain piece of software, resulting in a claim of 65.38 million yuan. Dongjin Company in the lawsuit with Intel through active defense, the two sides finally settled the case, the case did not form a guiding adjudication document. Due to imperfect legal provisions and lack of judicial precedents, the intellectual property risk of relevant enterprises to quote header files in order to achieve software compatibility still exists.

Imitating the interface or system view is easy to "set you on fire". After the copyright law of our country brings computer software as one of the works into the scope of copyright protection, the infringement of directly copying and copying software source code has been effectively regulated by law, but for the convenience of users, it is common to imitate the user interface of other software in the realization of compatibility, and the potential intellectual property risk is also more prominent. For example, on the road of globalization, Huawei has been accused by Cisco of copying its software command line interface, help interface and some source code, although the two sides finally reached a settlement, but the resulting threat and impact on Huawei, it's also a warning to other companies.

In addition, in the development of data management software, in order to be compatible with Oracle and other databases, it is inevitable to use its system view. If another implementation method