Without Java there might have been a million fewer apps in the Google Play store, a bold hypothetical that's similar in spirit to the point that Google is making to defend itself from Oracle's $1 billion lawsuit.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a San Francisco judge's ruling in favor of Oracle, Google is petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The case stems from Google's use of elements of Java's application programming interface (API), code that's owned by Oracle. The database megacorporation alleged that Google's use of 37 Java APIs was an infringement on intellectual property, though the open-natured Google argues that sharing spurs innovation.
"Early computer companies could have blocked vast amounts of technological development by claiming 95-year copyright monopolies over the basic building blocks of computer design and programming," Google said.
Oracle's grievance with Google is said to specifically focus on the search engine company's reliance on the Java APIs to create Android's software development kits, the toolboxes developers work out of to develop apps. The two tech titans were rumored to have been in talks to draw up a licensing deal, but the talks are said to have fallen through and Oracle ultimately filed suit.
A federal judge in San Francisco shot down Oracle's 2010 lawsuit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington later overturned the ruling and allowed that Oracle could copyright parts of the Java programming language. Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, which developed Java, first released it in 1995 and made its core code open under public software license in 2007. With Google's recent petition, the case could move to the nation's highest court and set a precedent on the ownership of computer code.
The ruling could have an impact on video game publisher and developer Ubisoft as it decides whether or not to pursue legal action against Warner Brothers. A former Ubisoft developer has been accusing Warner Brothers and Monolight Production of stealing code from Assassin's Creed II and using it in Shadow of Mordor.
The former Ubisoft developer, Charles Randall, has a bit more of a beef than borrowed code, as he accuses the game's developers of stealing assets as well and programming.
"Seriously, can someone tell me how Assassin's Creed 2 code and assets are in this Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor game," stated Randall on Twitter when Shadow of Mordor was revealed.
Michael de Plater, Shadow of Mordor's design director, outright dismissed Randall's claims.
"I think we were just a bit surprised because in any other genre it's such a given," de Plater said. "Nobody would bat an eyelid with a shooter, or a sports game, that two games in the same genre have some elements in common."
