Maybe they are trying to take advantage of some procedural quirks.
When Oracle sued Google, the case originally had both copyright claims and patent claims.
Is Amazon's API patented? If not, then if Amazon were to sue Oracle it would be only a copyright case, not a patent and copyright case.
Normally, appeals from most cases, including copyright cases, go to the appeals court for the same Circuit that the district court that heard the case is in, which would be the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (9th CA) in the case of Oracle vs. Google, and most likely also in an Amazon vs. Oracle.
However, if the case includes patent claims the appeal goes to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) instead of going to the CA for the circuit containing the district court.
If the case includes both patent claims and non-patent claims, the whole thing goes to CAFC which decides both the patent issues and the non-patent issues.
On patent issues, CAFC decisions are precedent for all district courts.
On those issues that get dragged along when a mixed case ends up at CAFC because it includes patent issues, CAFC is supposed to follow the precedent of the appeals court for the Circuit the case came from.
A lot of people believe that CAFC totally botched following 9th CA precedent in the Google case.
If Amazon sues Oracle but doesn't have a patent claim included to force appeals to CAFC, the appeal will end up at the 9th CA, which presumably will do a better job of following 9th CA precedent than CAFC did, and so rule against the API copyright (and so in favor of Oracle).
Until the Supreme Court actually gets around to settling this matter, we are in an inconsistent state in the 9th Circuit.
1. As far as specifically Google and Oracle are concerned, Oracle's API is copyrighted and what Google did infringes. CAFC said so when it handled the appeal, and that is binding precedent to the lower courts in any further proceeding between those two litigants.
2. For API copyright claims that are not between Oracle and Google and are not accompanied by a patent claim, the law is still what it was before the Google case.
3. For API copyright claims that are not between Oracle and Google but are accompanied by a patent claim, and so will be appealed through CAFC instead of 9th CA, presumably they will end up with the same wrong outcome as Oracle vs. Google.
When Oracle sued Google, the case originally had both copyright claims and patent claims.
Is Amazon's API patented? If not, then if Amazon were to sue Oracle it would be only a copyright case, not a patent and copyright case.
Normally, appeals from most cases, including copyright cases, go to the appeals court for the same Circuit that the district court that heard the case is in, which would be the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (9th CA) in the case of Oracle vs. Google, and most likely also in an Amazon vs. Oracle.
However, if the case includes patent claims the appeal goes to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) instead of going to the CA for the circuit containing the district court.
If the case includes both patent claims and non-patent claims, the whole thing goes to CAFC which decides both the patent issues and the non-patent issues.
On patent issues, CAFC decisions are precedent for all district courts.
On those issues that get dragged along when a mixed case ends up at CAFC because it includes patent issues, CAFC is supposed to follow the precedent of the appeals court for the Circuit the case came from.
A lot of people believe that CAFC totally botched following 9th CA precedent in the Google case.
If Amazon sues Oracle but doesn't have a patent claim included to force appeals to CAFC, the appeal will end up at the 9th CA, which presumably will do a better job of following 9th CA precedent than CAFC did, and so rule against the API copyright (and so in favor of Oracle).
Until the Supreme Court actually gets around to settling this matter, we are in an inconsistent state in the 9th Circuit.
1. As far as specifically Google and Oracle are concerned, Oracle's API is copyrighted and what Google did infringes. CAFC said so when it handled the appeal, and that is binding precedent to the lower courts in any further proceeding between those two litigants.
2. For API copyright claims that are not between Oracle and Google and are not accompanied by a patent claim, the law is still what it was before the Google case.
3. For API copyright claims that are not between Oracle and Google but are accompanied by a patent claim, and so will be appealed through CAFC instead of 9th CA, presumably they will end up with the same wrong outcome as Oracle vs. Google.