> No, they ruled that the copyright on the API was valid

No, they didn't. They very specifically did not rule on whether the API was protected by Oracle's copyright on Java.

> but that Google's infringement of it fell within the bounds of fair use.

They found that, even if the API was protected, Google's use would be within the scope of fair use, and therefore it was not necessary to decide the question of the underlying copyright.

Here is, in full, the opening paragraph of the decision:

Oracle America, Inc., is the current owner of a copyright in Java SE, a computer program that uses the popular Java computer programming language. Google, without permission, has copied a portion of that program, a portion that enables a programmer to call up prewritten software that, together with the computer’s hardware, will carry out a large number of specific tasks. The lower courts have considered (1) whether Java SE’s owner could copyright the portion that Google copied, and (2) if so, whether Google’s copying nonetheless constituted a “fair use” of that material, thereby freeing Google from copyright liability. The Federal Circuit held in Oracle’s favor (i.e., that the portion is copyrightable and Google’s copying did not constitute a “fair use”). In reviewing that decision, we assume, for argument’s sake, that the material was copyrightable. But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google’s copying did not violate the copyright law.

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kragen 4 days ago | parent [-]

Thank you for the correction. I clearly misremembered. It was the Federal Circuit that ruled that the API was copyrightable, not the Supreme Court: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf

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dragonwriter 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah, but the difference is, the precedential weight of Federal Circuit decisions on copyright is about the same as the precedential weight of HN posts on copyright.

Had the case not been in the Federal Circuit because it used to have patent issues, and had the xase instead stayed in the Ninth Circuit and had that Circuit ruled that and the Supreme Court left that part of the decision untouched, there would be binding precedent, if only in the Ninth Circuit. But on issues other than its special ones (patents, in this case) the Federal Circuit is to apply precedent from the Circuit the case would otherwise be in, but does not create binding precedent.

So, other than between Oracle and Google themselves, the parties to the original case, as a matter of res judicata, the Federal Circuit decision isn't controlling on any future court the way a Supreme Court decision or even a decision of one of the geographic circuits would be.

	▲	kragen 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I see. But don't circuit courts generally weigh each other's opinions rather highly, even if they aren't actually required to? And possibly a future vexatious litigant like Oracle might concoct some far-fetched patent claim to put some future lawsuit into the Federal Circuit as well?