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The highest court in the European Union issued a ruling yesterday that essentially declares programming languages are not copyrightable.

The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of World Programming Limited (WPL) over the SAS Institute, which developed the SAS System, an integrated set of programs that enables users to carry out data processing and analysis tasks.

WPL emulated these functionalities with its World Programming System to ensure that its platform would work the same way, meaning the same inputs would produce the same outputs.

Here are the most important parts of the ruling, according to the court judgment:

In … Read more

During testimony at the Oracle v. Google trial last week, former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and co-founder and Chairman Scott McNealy gave conflicting views. Schwartz maintained that as long as Google's Android mobile platform didn't call itself Java or use any of the branding, it was in the clear. McNealy disagreed.

• Oracle-Google trial puts ex-Sun execs on opposite sides

• Full coverage: Oracle v. Google lawsuit

Given that Sun didn't take Google to court, Schwartz, who was CEO from 2006 until 2010 when Oracle took over the company, apparently convinced McNealy and the board of directors … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The jury in the Oracle v. Google trial returned to U.S. District Court here this morning without a verdict, but with more questions. The nature of those questions, however, suggests what some of the jurors might be thinking.

Both questions this time focused on fair use and Android revenue. One juror, for example, asked if "the definition of commercial use is limited in this case by virtue of Android being freely distributed?" further questioning if that means because Android is not sold directly, could they consider indirect revenue from the mobile platform?

Oracle's lead attorney … Read more

In today's show, it's time to get touchy with BlackBerry, bite your nails over courtroom drama, and share your spleen on Facebook:

Research in Motion showcased the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and its new touch-screen keyboard. Senior Editor Brian Bennett called the keyboard 'freakishly smart, and it was as if the device could read his mind.

On Facebook, you can now add organ donor information to your timeline. To add it to your profile, select life event, and find it under health and wellness.

The first phase of the Oracle v. Google trial heads to jury. Google argues it used Java fairly … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- The jury in the Oracle-Google case continues to deliberate at the U.S. District Court over the first phase of the trial concerning copyright infringement.

The jury began deliberating on Monday afternoon after lawyers from both Oracle and Google offered their closing statements for the first segment of this trial.

As is customary in complex cases, the jury returned a few questions to Judge William Alsup, who read them in the courtroom for both legal teams and the public on Tuesday morning. But also customary was that there were disagreements from both sides on how to respond … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- After Oracle made its closing statements on Monday morning at the U.S. District Court, Google's Robert Van Nest stepped up to the plate, defending Android's implementation of the 37 Java APIs at question in this lawsuit.

Van Nest's core defense rested on positioning this as a case of fair use, asserting that Android is not a copy of Java 5.0 SE but rather a "substantially" different work with different success in the market.

"It's a whole platform that didn't exist before and transformed the use of Java … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle made its closing statements during the first segment of the Oracle-Google trial this morning, and it all boils down to this: Google is making excuses for taking the property of Sun Microsystems -- and now Oracle -- and using it on Android.

Oracle counsel Michael Jacobs commenced by telling the jury that "this is a trial between large companies over really important business issues," and sometimes the numbers involved have been staggering, whether they refer to the lines of code or dollar amounts in question.

Nevertheless, Jacobs said that there is really only one, … Read more

James Gosling has a great deal of his life invested in Java. He is considered the father of the programming language, which was launched by Sun in 1995 and runs on billions of digital devices, and is currently at the center of a contentious legal battle between Oracle and Google.

Up until Saturday night -- when he wrote that "Google totally slimed Sun" -- the proud father of Java had been fairly moderate in his comments about how Google treated his baby. 

When the lawsuit, claiming that Google had … Read more

Last updated August 29, 3:30 AM PT, with a correction on Java inventor James Gosling's view on the suit, and an additional quote from former Sun chief open source officer Simon Phipps. 

In the two weeks that the Oracle v. Google trial has been under way, it's become clear that Sun's top executives weren't unified in their thinking about whether Java could be used without a license from the company.

Oracle, which acquired Sun and the Java brand in January 2010, contends that Google's Android mobile platform infringed on intellectual property … Read more