Date: June 9, 2021 
Time: 10:00– 11:30 (Japan Time)
Theme: Software copyright protection and its limitations after Google v. Oracle
Venue: Online (ZOOM Webinar)
Language: English & Japanese (simultaneous translation)
Moderator: Christoph Rademacher (Waseda University)
Panelists: Pamela Samuelson (UC Berkeley Law School)                 
                  Koji Okumura (Keio University)
                  Tomoki Ishiara (Sidley Austin LLP)
                  Tatsuhiro Ueno (Waseda University)
Host: Waseda University, Research Center for the Legal System of Intellectual Property         (RCLIP)
Co-host: Waseda University School of Law
Participation fee: Free
*To participate, please register at the below URL:
 
Seminar Overview:

For many decades, legislators and courts in the US and around the world have held that software code can be protected by copyright law. Courts in the US, however, have developed different and arguably conflicting lines of case law regarding the extent of copyright protection for software interfaces. On April 5, 2021, the US Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in the dispute between Google and Oracle regarding copyright protection of Oracle’s Java programming language’s application programming interfaces (APIs) that were included into Google’s Android operating system. While the Supreme Court’s majority side-stepped the issue of copyright protection for APIs, it did develop new contours of US copyright’s fair use doctrine that warrant further comparative discussion.

Professor Pamela Samuelson, one of the most notable experts in the area of copyright and information law (and the author of the most-heavily supported amicus brief submitted by an academic in the case at issue) will recap the case and share her opinion on the US Supreme Court’s approach. A panel of leading Japanese copyright law experts will then engage in discussion about how a Japanese court would decide a similar case under Japanese law. This set of initial remarks will be followed by a panel discussion and by a Q&A session during which the audience can engage with the speakers.