Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.

 was a legal case within the United States related to the nature
of computer code and copyright law. The dispute was all about the Oracle owned Java API that
Google used for its Android development. The case has been of significant interest within the tech
and software industries, as numerous computer programs and software libraries, particularly in open
source, are developed by recreating the functionality of APIs

2010

While two District Court-level jury trials found in favor of Google, the Federal Circuit court reversed
both decisions, asserting APIs are copyrightable and Google's use does not fall under fair use.

2012

So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under
the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification
of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines
are identical.

2014
The case was remanded to the District Court for a second trial, to consider whether Google's use
was acceptable anyway, under the doctrine of fair use, since the original case had not brought out
the facts related to fair use sufficiently for the Appeal Court to rule on that point.

In October 2014, Google petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case;[45] this request was
denied in June 2015.

2016

Oracle was seeking damages of up to US$9 billion.[49][50][51][52][53][54] On May 26, 2016, the jury found that
Android does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights.

Oracle's appeal was heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 2017.

the Court ruled in favor of Oracle.[61] The ruling analyzed the aspects of a "fair use" claim which were
to be decided by a judge and jury, respectively.

Google filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States in January 2019 to challenge the
two rulings that were made by the appeals court in Oracle's favor. However, the Supreme Court
postponed its March argument session on March 16 in light of concerns surrounding COVID-19

2021

 the Court ruled that Google's use of the Java APIs was within the bounds of fair use.

Google only used about 0.4% of the total Java source code and was minimal.

Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that permits limited use of copyrighted material
without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder.