| Take a look at the discussion under the post called Maybe Google did lose on
the big fat manual. My current opinion is that deciphering the "big fat
manual" comment is not nearly so important as reading the proposed jury
instructions and the comments by the parties which were all posted under a
different article.
[...] wouldn't publication of books and
manuals mean that IP is free for those to use?
You don't give up
your copyright protection when you publish a book or a manual. You can't
copyright the ideas in the book but you can copyright your expression of those
ideas.
OTOH, Google says that Oracle entered into evidence only 3 examples
of copying from their manual. None of the copying was verbatim. Google says
the similarities are due to the similar functionalities of the APIs. You cannot
copyright an idea but it seems that is exactly what Oracle is trying to do. In
addition, Google claims that at best Oracle can only show infringement for the 3
examples they gave. I now believe this is what the judge was referring to when
he said "you're not going to win on the big fat manual" (or words to that
effect).
You are absolutely right that anything published in a book can't
be used as a trade secret but trade secrets were never a part of this case.
Neither were trademarks. This case is only about patents and copyrights.
---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts than the
one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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