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The US Supreme Court just handed Google a huge win in its massive Android lawsuit
A legal battle in progress for over a decade is over
It's been over a decade since Oracle first began its lawsuit against Google over the use of parts of the Java platform in Android. Today, the United States Supreme Court finally ended it, with Google being the long-protracted winner. While the relevant bits of Java haven't been used by Android in years, the end of this court battle sets a precedent in US copyright law that will be important for almost anyone making software platforms in the future.
One of the main appeals of Android for many enthusiasts (or anyone looking to install emulators) is that you can easily sideload applications not available from the Play Store. Things are very different over in the Apple world, but that could change soon, as the United States Supreme Court has ruled that consumers can sue Apple for its App Store monopoly.
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Oracle's copyright suit against Google for using Java APIs in Android has been an ongoing feud since 2010, and the stakes are only about to get higher. The Federal Circuit denied Google's appeal Tuesday of a March decision that found Google's use of Oracle's Java APIs was not fair use. Now, Google has stated it will take the case to the Supreme Court.
Gathering location data just became trickier for authorities. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that accessing a suspect's cell phone location history should require a warrant. The decision came at the end of Carpenter v. United States, the first case about location data the Supreme Court has ruled on.
The Supreme Court just handed down a decision in South Dakota v Wayfair, Inc. that states can force online retailers to collect sales taxes from purchases. This overturns a decision from 1992 that mandated that states could levy taxes on businesses only if they had a brick-and-mortar presence within that state's borders.
German-based eyeo, parent company of popular ad blocker Adblock Plus, announced yesterday that it had won a case against publishing house Axel Springer heard in the German Supreme Court, putting an end to a longstanding legal dispute and affirming with finality that both the blocking of ads and allowing certain unobtrusive ads to be exempt from that blocking—a practice called whitelisting—are legal in the country.
New developments in the longstanding legal feud between Oracle and Google: a federal appeals court has reversed the 2016 ruling that found Google's use of Oracle's Java APIs in Android was fair use. The dispute has been ongoing since 2010.
Top technology companies are no strangers to patent litigation. Wherever there is money to be made there will always be opportunistic individuals and companies who will obtain patents in order to profit from licensing or litigation. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ruled on a key change that should make it much harder for patent trolls to be successful.
It's been a rough year for Samsung, but the Supreme Court just gave the company a big early Christmas present... or at the very least, they denied one to Apple. Reuters reports that the highest court decided unanimously (8-0) that the $399 million in damages sought by Apple in the years-old iPhone design patent case was too much, siding with Samsung's appeal which said that copying only certain elements of the iPhone design patent didn't entitle Apple to all profits made from an infringing phone.
Back in December, we published a story about a patent (6665797) belonging to Ho Keung Tse. The patent supposedly covered a DRM method by which users could download paid digital content to multiple devices without going through another payment process.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. In a conclusion to court cases that have been going around the country ever since the service started in 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled this morning that Aereo TV is in active violation of copyright law. The decision in favor of television and cable broadcasters and their corporate backers will effectively cripple the web and mobile streaming TV service, and may destroy the company altogether.