Ruling in Google versus Oracle: APIs are not copyrightable

05/31, 9:52pm

41-page brief first ruling of its kind

Further announcements have come from Judge William Alsup's courtroom in the Google versus Oracle case today. The judge has decreed programming APIs to be non-copyrightable. The ruling comes in accordance with existing copyright law declaring "a utilitarian and functional set of symbols, each to carry out a pre-assigned function" non-copyrightable under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act. Alsup's court is the first court, district or appeals, to have specifically addressed the separate matter of API copyrightability, instead of the complete codebase copyrightability issue.

AOL announces Open Voice APIs

04/29, 12:15pm

AOL intros Open Voice APIs

On Tuesday, AOL introduced Open Voice Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that could bring mainstream VoIP a step closer to cell phone use. The APIs would endow third-party developers and VoIP device makers with open standards that would in turn allow them to integrate AOL Instant Messenger's Call Out service into softphones, SIP-enabled hardware and even Wi-Fi enabled cell phones. This would allow cell phone users to make low-cost voice calls via AIM's Call Out service, which would relay them via the Internet instead of the traditional phone network.

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