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0 pointsrayiner5y ago0 comments

The difference is that Baker didn’t involve literal copying of the accounting tables. Baker is treated as a merger case, but it’s more a case about the difference between copyright and a method patent. Baker claimed that copying the general structure of the tables was infringement. The court essentially held that the structure that was copied was the structure dictated by the method itself. And Selden couldn’t copyright any table that had the same structure because that would give him a monopoly on the method.

Here, the Java APIs were copied literally. For example, say you’ve got a function to append an item to a list:

Append(item, list) Append(list, item)

If you changed the order of the parameters, you wouldn’t be literally copying, even though it’s the same basic signature. That’s the Baker case. You can’t monopolize the method of appending an item to a list by extending copyright to all possible permutations of the limited ways to write the signature.

But what happens if you do literally copy? That’s this case. Then, the question is whether these choices of where to put the parameter reflect any creativity.

I happen to think they do—I strongly prefer the first form, which is how it’s done in the Common Lisp standard library.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

nitrogen5y ago· 2 in thread

Then, the question is whether these choices of where to put the parameter reflect any creativity.

Though the choices are creative, it's necessary to replicate them exactly to produce a functioning interface for existing Java code. It's like a design for an electrical connector; maybe patentable, but it's essential to the function so shouldn't be copyrightable.

phire5y ago

Are google deliberately not arguing the "APIs should be patentable but not copyrightable" angle because they think that would make the situation even worse than it already is?

imtringued5y ago

Patents are opt in while copyright is opt out. If APIs are copyrightable Google will never get access to the Java API, ever. If someone gets a patent then it will expire eventually. Of course Google wants to go back to the status quo: APIs not being protected by IP rights.

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andrewjl5y ago

> Then, the question is whether these choices of where to put the parameter reflect any creativity.

Interesting. This argument seems to imply that languages are copyrightable based upon creativity in ordering, punctuation, use of certain expressions such as `&`, etc. How is that different from your example? In fact a computer language itself is nothing but an API to a human-readable specification for machine behavior. I can see the specification being a creative work and hence being patentable. I don't see the same for the API code.

I'll have to think more about it. I can't offer a more substantive counter-argument now.

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