Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

4 

GOOGLE LLC v. ORACLE AMERICA, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

negotiate a license, but they were unsuccessful, in part be-
cause of “trust issues.”  App. 657.

When those negotiations broke down, Google simply de-
cided to use Oracle’s code anyway.  Instead of creating its 
own declaring code—as Apple and Microsoft chose to do—
Google  copied  verbatim  11,500  lines  of  Oracle’s  declaring
code and arranged that code exactly as Oracle had done.  It 
then  advertised  Android  to  device  manufacturers  as  con-
taining “Core Java Libraries.”  Id., at 600.  Oracle predict-
ably responded by suing Google for copyright infringement. 
The  Federal  Circuit  ruled  that  Oracle’s  declaring  code  is 
copyrightable  and  that  Google’s  copying  of  it  was  not  fair 
use. 

II 

The Court wrongly sidesteps the principal question that 
we  were  asked  to  answer:  Is  declaring  code  protected  by
copyright?  I would hold that it is. 

Computer  code  occupies  a  unique  space  in  intellectual 
property.  Copyright  law  generally  protects  works  of  au-
thorship.  Patent law generally protects inventions or dis-
coveries.  A library of code straddles these two categories.
It is highly functional like an invention; yet as a writing, it 
is  also  a  work  of  authorship.    Faced  with  something  that
could  fit  in either  space,  Congress  chose  copyright,  and  it
included declaring code in that protection. 

The Copyright Act expressly protects computer code.  It 
recognizes that a “computer program” is protected by copy-
right.  See 17 U. S. C. §§109(b), 117, 506(a).  And it defines 
“ ‘computer program’ ” as “a set of statements or instructions 
to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to 
bring about a certain result.”  §101.  That definition clearly 
covers  declaring  code—sets  of  statements  that  indirectly
perform computer functions by triggering prewritten imple-
menting code.

Even  without  that  express  language,  declaring  code