>The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are.
Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit. As it does not have original jurisdiction in copyright disputes (only patent cases), it doesn't supercede any copyrightability rulings in other circuits, for instance the 1st circuit's holding in Lotus v Borland that the Lotus macros were not copyrightable as a "method of operation". And today's opinion cites Lotus v Borland several times even though the original 1996 Supreme Court case was deadlocked at 4-4.
> Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit.
I think it's even narrower than that: the Federal Circuit's ruling on non-patent aspects of the case isn't binding precedent outside of Oracle v. Google. District courts in the Ninth Circuit and the appeals court are free to ignore the Federal Circuit ruling in future cases and look to only rulings from the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court as binding precedent.
The federal circuit's ruling is not precedent or binding in the 9th circuit.
Because of it's lack of jurisdiction, it doesn't supersede anything, not just "other circuits"
They have no subject matter jurisdiction over copyright, and so they only apply pre-existing regional law.
Their decisions on that pre-existing regional law have no force within that circuit.
This is similar to when federal courts have to apply state law.
Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit.
No, not only 9th circuit.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is binding nationwide. And if the case includes claims about patents and/or trademarks, even if those specific claims are thrown out, then the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit becomes the court that the case is appealed to.
Which is how this particular case wound up there in the first place.
When ruling on aspects of a case that fall outside of their subject matter jurisdiction (eg. copyright rather than patents), the Federal Circuit is supposed to follow the local circuit's precedent, ie. rule how they think the Ninth Circuit would have ruled on those issues. And my understanding is that the Federal Circuit's rulings on eg. the copyright aspects of a case like this do not overturn Ninth Circuit copyright precedent and do not establish new copyright precedent anywhere, not even the Federal Circuit (since in future cases they will again be required to apply the relevant local circuit's copyright precedents as they exist at that time).
The Federal Circuit's copyright decision is binding on the parties to the case at hand, but the precedent for future cases is non-binding at best.
This was one of the arguments that the FSF and SFLC put forth in their amicus brief recommending that the Supreme Court not take up Google's appeal of the API copyright question:
> The court below predicted, on the basis of no compelling evidence, that the Ninth Circuit would depart from settled existing law in a novel direction which, as amici supporting the petition have said at length, would be destructive alike of commercial certainty and freedom to implement, thus inhibiting the progress of science and the useful arts. Neither the Ninth Circuit nor any other regional Court of Appeals is likely to defer to this improbable supposition, so the error is largely self-limiting. Such erroneous predictions of other courts’ holdings are not a suitable employment of this Court’s scarce resources in review by certiorari.
Not even the 9th Circuit. For cases arising from thr 9th Cir., 9th Cir. case law binds the CAFC, not the other way around, on issues that are outside ofnthe subject-matter for which the CAFC has nationwide jurisdiction.
> The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is binding nationwide
No, it’s decisions are only binding nationwide on the issues within its special jurisdiction, which copyright is not. On other issues, it is instead bound by the case law of the circuit that would otherwise be responsible for the case, and notionally is just an interpreter of that circuit's case law. It’s decisions on those collateral matters on cases brought before it because they also touch on one of the issues reserved to the CAFC aren’t binding on any other court.
Federal Circuit's ruling would only be precedent in the 9th circuit. As it does not have original jurisdiction in copyright disputes (only patent cases), it doesn't supercede any copyrightability rulings in other circuits, for instance the 1st circuit's holding in Lotus v Borland that the Lotus macros were not copyrightable as a "method of operation". And today's opinion cites Lotus v Borland several times even though the original 1996 Supreme Court case was deadlocked at 4-4.