Google Gouges Oracle As Justices Side With Mod Edison

Shades of Edison & Tesla? The WSJ tells us the “Supreme Court Sides With Google Over Oracle in Copyright Battle” that assures the future of its Android operating system & the mega-buck investment it represents.

The newspaper put it this way: It’s a “decision that could weaken software copyright protections but allow developers more room to build on each other’s products.” In lay mans’ terms, “that’s a pretty big deal.” Few folks are still alive to recall the parallel contest between Tom Edison & Serbian born Nikola Tesla in developing, then, commercially exploiting their similar yet different electrical delivery systems. As LiveScience noted in its piece “Who Was the Better Inventor?” celebrating Tesla’s 164 birthday last year, “the two feuding geniuses waged a ‘War of Currents’ in the 1880s over whose electrical system would power the world – Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) system or Edison’s rival direct-current (DC) electric power.” Edison basically out-maneuvered Tesla. He was the “better” politician & businessman. Yet, Tesla was the real inventor of the light bulb that his former boss, well, again, he was the better entrepreneur...and, he had better lawyers in his camp.

Fast forward to Monday’s 6-2 opinion issued by the U.S. Supreme Court throwing out a lower-court ruling for Oracle saying Google’s copying of some of its Java API code was “fair use.” APIs you must know are APP interfaces or prewritten packages of computer code that “allow programs, websites or apps to talk to one another”. Also sounds pretty key. Tesla would know how Oracle feels today.

Davd Soul