Author: Dennis G. Jansen, LL.M. (Berkeley)

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on June 29, 2015 Google's application to reverse the appellate court's decision in Oracle v. Google. The court has thus decided in accordance with the Solicitor General's non-binding recommendation. The parties are litigating about whether Google requires a license to distribute an API which is partially identical with Java's. The district court will now have to determine whether the use of parts of the API by Google in Android is covered by fair use or whether Oracle can expect to collect a substantial award in damages.

On 3rd June 2015 Wikileaks released a confidential document on Electronic Commerce as currently discussed by the USA, Japan, the EU and 21 other countries (excluding the BRIC States) in the TISA negotiations which seem to pose a serious threat to FOSS Development.

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by Florian Idelberger

The Software Freedom Conservancy recently announced that they are supporting a lawsuit against virtualization company VMware in a case of supposed GPL violation. Christoph Hellwig, a developer and thereby copyright holder in the Linux Kernel filed suit in the district court of Hamburg  March. The suit covers VMware’s alleged failure to comply with the terms of the GPL v2 when incorporating the Linux Kernel or other products in its ESXi line of products. Allegations of misuse have been made since 2007 and the investigation dragged on, with attempts for an alternative resolution not getting anywhere. Last year, the Software Freedom Conservancy was apparently informed by VMware’s legal counsel that they did not intend to comply and they actually thought they were in compliance. » Weiter

By: Sylvia F. Jakob

After reaching the final stages, the Versata saga, a ray of hope for the judicial interpretation of certain GPL v. 2 provisions, has ultimately been settled outwith court.

Background

Versata Software Inc. prepared the ground for what may be regarded a set of landmark cases concerning the interpretation and consequences of the breach of certain GPL v. 2 conditions, when it sued Ameriprise Financial Services for allegedly violating a Master License Agreement (MLA) over the use of Versata´s Distribution Channel Management software (DCM). On Versata´s account Ameriprise had allowed third party contractors to use their access to the DCM software to create a competitive product.

The parties pit their strength against each other in what has become known as: » Weiter