[LINK] EU court rules programming languages cannot be copyrighted

[Marghanita da Cruz]

> In the case of SAS v. WPL, the European Union (EU) Court of Justice ruled (PDF) that the functionality of a computer program and the language it is programmed in cannot be copyrighted. WPL developed a competing product to SAS' statistical analysis software using the SAS Language, and SAS took a lawsuit against WPL to the British High Court, which passed questions on to the EU Court of Justice.
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> Oracle is claiming copyright control over the way its Java programming language can be used through the use of application programming interfaces, with Google's Android being the test candidate for Oracle's fantasy. While the EU Court of Justice has no jurisdiction in the US, its ruling in SAS v. WPL should lead to Oracle getting very short shrift should it try to pursue a similar lawsuit against Google or anyone else in Europe.
> 
> Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/1aEQt)
<http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2172127/eu-court-rules-programming-languages-copyrighted>
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Marghanita da Cruz
Ramin Communications (Sydney)
Website: http://ramin.com.au
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