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That was half of my point | 287 comments | Create New Account

Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.

Perhaps APIs are like the building codes.

Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, June 07 2013 @ 04:00 AM EDT

I did not read the parent. PJ has put a new article up!

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

That was half of my point

Authored by: bugstomper on Friday, June 07 2013 @ 06:17 AM EDT

I did try to make the point that APIs are not blueprints, and for much of the
same reasons that you gave.

But my other point is that even they were like blueprints, the aspects of
blueprints that are analogous to the declaring code of APIs are not protected by
copyright law. Even if you grant the analogy, it still doesn't help Oracle's
case. According to the articles I read, until special laws were passed in 1990,
and even after 1990 if you are not dealing with human-habitable permanent
buildings, copyright law would not prevent someone from using a blueprint to
build their own building to its specifications. If the Java API were like a
blueprint, Google should be able to write their own implementation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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