Judge Alsup, arguably the most respected juror of his generation, has ruled that the Java APIs at issue are not copyrightable, effectively handing Oracle a legal black eye. The conclusion of this action, some two years after its commencement, raises the question as to the motives of Oracle in bringing it to court in the first place given that the trial proper became a switch in importance from the alleged infringement of dozens of patents, to a skirmish about copyright of API code in what is supposedly a "free to use" programming language.
