The tech world has been buzzing over the last two weeks about Google’s win over Oracle in their recent bout of litigation. But what does it actually mean for the tech industry?

A little background

Before we jump into the answer, let’s get a little background and some facts straight.

Oracle and Google have been fighting each other in the courts since 2010. Oracle has been arguing for years that it is owed damages because Google built its Android operating system on Java API’s that allow it to interact with Java based applications — for those non-technical readers out there, an API is basically a building block that software developers use when they write code.

What?!#@!@! I still don’t get it?! What’s an API?!

API’s are what allow applications on the internet and in software to communicate with one another. In many ways, they are like mini translation engines that allow software built by different companies to communicate with one another in a controlled and predictable fashion. I think of them as building blocks today because in the modern world — largely due to the internet — applications and software doesn’t really exist in independent silos. Everything communicates with one another. It’s API’s that allow you to use gmail or Facebook to login to websites, API’s that allow you to use email clients like the one on your iPhone or mac, and it’s API’s that allow you to watch youtube on your tv. API’s are part of the very fabric of our digital existence. Of course, this is a simplified description, if you want a more precise explanation click here.

In 2012 Google won the case in a DC district court. Unfortunately, this ruling was overturned in a 2014 Federal Circuit court ruling. This time the courts decided that Google had infringed on Oracle’s copyright. This ruling opened the door for companies to copyright API’s. The next stage would have been a Supreme court case, but the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Oracle v. Google — When Titan’s clash

In the current case, Oracle and Google are fighting over weather or not Google’s use of 37 API’s were “fair use.” Oracle says “no” and Google says yes. We’ve defined “Fair use” for those non-attorney readers out there below.

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement. — See more at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/#sthash.4IjWMgL9.dpuf

This “fair use” argument is key because it is the only way a company or person can legally use copyrighted materials without the permission of the owner of the copyright. Google argued that they took the API’s and transformed them into their Android system. For Google, the API’s in question were nothing more then “bricks” in a building. They looked the same because all “bricks” have the same function.

Google went on to point out that the practice of re-creating API’s internally was common practice throughout the industry.

Impact

This needs to be stressed. Every software company today has been built on software, concepts, and implementations created by companies either coming before them or behemoths (like Oracle) that have been in the space for years. Silicon Valley is literally built on the shoulders of giants. Innovation is all about taking todays “x” and making tomorrow’s Unicorn. It’s about reimplementing, rethinking, and expanding on what’s come before.

If Google had lost the case, and it was decided that Google’s use of the API’s weren’t “fair use,”it could have spelled the beginning of the unraveling of the entire tech industry. Because Google was right, virtually everybody does was Google did. Had the ruling gone the other way, it could have opened Pandora’s box of litigation pitting half the companies in the valley against one another. We could have seen a domino effect of lawsuits ripple across the software world.

That’s why Google’s win is good news for software developers everywhere. While it certainly means developers don’t need to worry about reimplementing API’s, readers should be reminded that the decision in the Oracle v. Google case did not overturn the 2014 appellate court case. “Fair Use” claim are decided on a case by case basis, this means that a company can still copy right their API’s.

Implications for Start-ups

So why does all of this matter? The reason is simple: many start-ups and open-source projects leverage API’s to make their products or services compatible with other company products. These API’s are usually copied or rebuilt internally in a way that would make them almost indistinguishable from the original API’s — think back to my “a brick looks like a brick” analogy — and because of this fact startups are increasingly opening themselves up to litigation by larger companies.

This will continue to be a sitting threat that exists within the tech world until the appellate court case is over-turned, and who knows when or if that will ever happen. So code carefully.