Landmark USSC decision in Google LLC v Oracle AM Inc. clarifies the law of fair use in software contexts

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that Google copying lines of declaring code from Oracle's Java SE API program constituted fair use under US copyright law. The Supreme Court found Google’s use transformative and fair. The decade-long software case ended with a 6 -2 decision by the Supreme Court, reversing the prior Federal Circuit’s decision on fair use. Noteworthy, the court “assumed” copyright protected Oracle’s Java SE API “for argument’s sake”, leaving for another day issues relating to the subsistence and scope of copyright protection in lines of declaring code that enable ‘shortcuts for programmers’ to the organizational system adopted by API developers. A more fulsome analysis, including the possible implications at Canadian law, will follow.

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- 19 August 2022

Net Zero – 10,000 days to go

As of this week, it is 10,000 days until the start of 2050, which is when the vast majority of the world is aiming to arrive at net zero. Much progress has taken place around the world and in this article we will explore the journey being undertaken on the road to net zero in critical materials and alternative fuels.

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- 15 August 2022

What makes a good intellectual property solicitor?

A vital value of most UT Companies is their IP in terms of patents, trademarks etc. Sometimes the IP comes under attack from competitors or other companies, which is where an Intellectual Property Solicitor comes in. But how do they work, and what is the difference between a Property Solicitor and a Patent Attorney?

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- 12 August 2022

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Agritech space

The European Patent Office (EPO) has seen a remarkable increase in the number of AI patent filings in the Agritech sector in recent years. In this article we highlight the growth from the year 2000 until 2019.