Court Denies Google Appeal
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The US Supreme Court has scotched Google’s attempt to overturn a ruling in favour of Oracle over software copyright.

The court’s decision has held up a prior ruling that certain kinds of programming instructions are entitled to copyright protection, as Oracle argued. 

Google and some other industry groups had argued that treating the instructions as creative works protected by copyright could hurt the ability of companies and programmers to take advantage of standard software functions and make different programs work together.

The move is the latest development in a case dating to 2010, when Oracle alleged Google’s Android smartphone operating system infringed copyrights on Oracle’s Java programming technology. 

The technology, which originated at Sun Microsystems, includes a programming language and a layer of software that helps programs work on multiple kinds of operating systems and hardware.