Computer programs are constantly evolving, making copyright infringement an important issue. In 2010, Oracle filed a complaint against Google for copying API packages for its mobile operating system. The district court ruled in favor of Google, finding that APIs are not subject to copyright. On appeal, the circuit court endorsed the abstraction-filtration-comparison test for determining copyrightability. It found that certain expressions in Oracle's declaring code were original and protected by copyright. Google petitioned the Supreme Court to review the appellate court's decision, as a lot of money and reputation depends on the Supreme Court's ruling.

1. Computer programs are subject to constant new developments, making issues like Copyright
infringement a subject matter of pertinence. Presently, Oracle and Google is battling on similar
grounds. In August, 2010 Oracle filed a complaint that Google has copied verbatim the literal
elements of the API packages in its mobile operating system. API packages form the platform for
mobile software development; in this case Google went to the extent of replicating the exact
elements of the declaring source code. The issue which was dealt with most was about the non-
literal elements of 37 packages out of 166 packages.
Northern District of California decided the case in favor of Google and held that API is not a
subject matter of Copyright. The Ninth Circuit in this case endorsed the principle of Abstraction-
Filtration-Comparison which was developed in Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc.1.
Copyright protection cannot be denied for the lines of the declaring code because Sun/Oracle did
not provide only a single technique of writing the declaring code. Secondly, those phases used in
it are creative and original in terms of selection and arrangement and certain expressions in the
programs are subject to copyright protection.
Google filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court to the review the decision of the subordinate
court on 6th October, 2014. Thus, a lot is at stake in terms of money, reputation which will be
depending on the Supreme Court.
1 982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992)