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GOOGLE LLC v. ORACLE AMERICA, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

that  hoped  to  become  involved  in  smartphone  software. 
Google sought, through Android, to develop a software plat-
form for mobile devices like smartphones.  886 F. 3d 1179, 
1187 (CA Fed. 2018); App. 137–138, 242–243.  A platform
provides  the  necessary  infrastructure  for  computer  pro-
grammers to develop new programs and applications.  One 
might think of a software platform as a kind of factory floor
where computer programmers (analogous to autoworkers, 
designers, or manufacturers) might come, use sets of tools 
found  there,  and  create  new  applications  for  use  in,  say, 
smartphones.  (For visual explanations of “platforms” and 
other  somewhat  specialized  computer-related  terms,  you 
might want to look at the material in Appendix A, infra.)

Google envisioned an Android platform that was free and 
open,  such  that  software  developers  could  use  the  tools
found there free of charge.  Its idea was that more and more 
developers using its Android  platform would develop ever 
more Android-based applications, all of which would make 
Google’s Android-based smartphones more attractive to ul-
timate consumers.  Consumers would then buy and use ever 
more of those phones.  Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., 
872  F. Supp.  2d  974,  978  (ND  Cal.  2012);  App.  111,  464. 
That vision required attracting a sizeable number of skilled 
programmers. 

At that time, many software developers understood and 
wrote programs using the Java programming language, a
language invented by Sun Microsystems (Oracle’s predeces-
sor).  872 F. Supp. 2d, at 975, 977.  About six million pro-
grammers had spent considerable time learning, and then
using,  the  Java  language.  App.  228.    Many  of  those  pro-
grammers used Sun’s own popular Java SE platform to de-
velop new programs primarily for use in desktop and laptop 
computers.  Id.,  at  151–152,  200.  That  platform  allowed
developers using the Java language to write programs that 
were able to run on any desktop or laptop computer, regard-
less of the underlying hardware (i.e., the programs were in