Does copyright apply to programming languages?
After one and a half years of pre-trial proceedings, hundreds of reviewed documents involving 75 lawyers from both sides, representatives of Oracle and Google will confront the District Court of Northern California to find out whether programming languages are protected by copyright.
Such a cardinal staging was suggested by the judge himself. In a special request last week, the court ruled that Google and Oracle should firmly clarify their positions on the fundamental question: “Do intellectual property protection laws apply to programming languages?” And the companies have already provided their answers. In particular, Google has clearly stated : “No, programming languages are not subject to copyright protection. Google has always taken this position. ”
Google further explains that “a certain set of instructions may be protected, but the protection does not apply to the method of conducting operations or the system — the programming language — through which these instructions are perceived by the computer.” Google believes that a computer language is "initially utilitarian, not subject to copyright protection of computer operations."
According to the American laws on the protection of intellectual property, the idea itself cannot be protected by copyright, but the original and creative way of expressing this idea can. Google is in the position that a programming language is an idea or a utilitarian tool, while the specific software created with its help is a creative expression of the idea.
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Oracle, in its own response to the judicial inquiry, is expected to take the opposite position. The company believes that "a computer language can be protected by copyright if it is quite original and creative." Although Oracle lawyers point out that copyright cannot protect against the creation of similar programming languages that perform the same function. But they believe that the “specific vocabulary and written expressions” of the language should be protected.
Attempts by the parties to agree on compensation in the pretrial order were not crowned with success. So now everything is in the hands of the judge. The first hearings on this case will be held on Monday, April 16 .
Such a cardinal staging was suggested by the judge himself. In a special request last week, the court ruled that Google and Oracle should firmly clarify their positions on the fundamental question: “Do intellectual property protection laws apply to programming languages?” And the companies have already provided their answers. In particular, Google has clearly stated : “No, programming languages are not subject to copyright protection. Google has always taken this position. ”
Google further explains that “a certain set of instructions may be protected, but the protection does not apply to the method of conducting operations or the system — the programming language — through which these instructions are perceived by the computer.” Google believes that a computer language is "initially utilitarian, not subject to copyright protection of computer operations."
According to the American laws on the protection of intellectual property, the idea itself cannot be protected by copyright, but the original and creative way of expressing this idea can. Google is in the position that a programming language is an idea or a utilitarian tool, while the specific software created with its help is a creative expression of the idea.
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Oracle, in its own response to the judicial inquiry, is expected to take the opposite position. The company believes that "a computer language can be protected by copyright if it is quite original and creative." Although Oracle lawyers point out that copyright cannot protect against the creation of similar programming languages that perform the same function. But they believe that the “specific vocabulary and written expressions” of the language should be protected.
Attempts by the parties to agree on compensation in the pretrial order were not crowned with success. So now everything is in the hands of the judge. The first hearings on this case will be held on Monday, April 16 .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/142093/
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