Supreme Court, Finally, Takes Up ‘Google v. Oracle’

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Publish Date:
November 15, 2019
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The National Law Journal
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Summary

The U.S. Supreme Court has jumped into a titanic copyright battle between Oracle Corp. and Google LLC with both barrels.

The high court granted Friday Google’s petition for certiorari—leaving the court free to address the copyrightability of software and the defense of fair use. The court’s involvement is sure to reignite a 50-year-old debate over how much, if any, software should be subject to copyright, and the contours of the fair use defense in the digital age.

“This is the copyright case of the century,” said Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, who has represented Google in copyright matters but isn’t speaking for the company in this case. “However it is decided, it has the potential to reshape not only software copyright law but copyright doctrine more generally.”

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