U.S. Supreme Court backs Google over Oracle in major copyright case

Oracle and Google, two California-based technology giants with combined annual revenues of more than $175 billion, have been feuding since Oracle sued for copyright infringement in2010 in San Francisco federal court.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed AlphabetInc's Google a major victory on Monday, ruling that its use of Oracle Corp's software code to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones did not violate federal copyright law. In a 6-2 decision, the justices overturned a lower court'sruling that found Google's inclusion of Oracle's software code in Android did not constitute a fair use under U.S. copyright law. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that allowing Oracle to enforce a copyright on its code would harm the public by making it a "lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key."