The Obama Administration Withdraws Support For Google, Asks US Supreme Court To Decline Tech Giant's Copyright Appeal

The Obama administration asked the United States Supreme Court to decline the copyright appeal of Google Inc. in a case against Oracle Corp. The Obama administration formerly sided with Google but on Tuesday, the court filing that was submitted suggests otherwise.

The case between Google Inc. and Oracle Corp. is about the copyright protection that should be extended to the Java programming language. Oracle Corp. already won a federal appeals court ruling in 2014 and it allowed them to copyright parts of Java but Google Inc. argued that they should freely use Java without having to pay any licensing fee.

The Obama administration was involved in the case as the U.S. Supreme Court asked them for their opinion regarding the case last January. The federal government also has a strong interest on the case thus the involvement of the Obama administration.

Google pointed out in the latest copyright appeal that if Oracle Corp. would win the case, this would then cause an obstruction on innovation as software developers will not be able to use each other's work freely. Google Inc. used Java to create their Android smartphone operating system. Oracle Corp. counters that the key to software innovation was effective copyright protection, meaning the payment of the licensing fee.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said in the court filing on Tuesday that Google's argument lacks merit and no longer needs to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court although he noted that Google Inc. was able to raise a lot of important concerns but these should be tackled in a San Francisco federal court and not via the U.S. top court.

Google Inc. then released a statement saying that they appreciate the careful review of Verrilli but is disappointed with the conclusions made by the Obama administration. The Supreme Court is yet to decide if they will hear the appeal of Google Inc. by June.