Federal Circuit sends Oracle v. Google back for third trial - The Verge

From Oracle Wins Court Ruling Against Google in Multibillion-Dollar Copyright Case (WSJ): "The decision will have a “broad chilling effect” on software development for startups, said Pamela Samuelson, an intellectual-property law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. She expects a flood of new lawsuits over the unauthorized use of APIs, as well as raft of cease-and-desist letters from big tech firms seeking licensing fees to use their APIs."

"The Federal Circuit has ruled for a second time in Oracle v. Google, the software copyright lawsuit over Google’s Android platform. The new decision reverses the district court yet again and sends the case back for a third trial to determine damages for Oracle. In the last trial, Oracle sought almost $9 billion in damages.

The litigation has been dragging on for about eight years now, bouncing up and down through appeals and two whole jury trials. It all started because Google wanted to make the Android platform compatible with apps written in the Java language. Rather than license the Java platform from Sun Microsystems, which would allow programs written in Java to run, Google instead chose to write its own version (also known as a clean room implementation). However, because of the way that code works, Android still shared some similarities with the Java platform." 

Federal Circuit sends Oracle v. Google back for third trial - The Verge