Oracle claimed that the APIs were under copyright protection (there was also a claim or two about code, but that was resolved in phase one).
This decision means that the Structure, Sequence, and Organization (SSO) of an API is not eligible for copyright protection. In short, in this case, it means the specification that makes java java (as opposed to python, ruby, c, etc.) can not be copyrighted.
Note, this does not refer to a document that contains the specification or an implementation of java. Both of those are an expression of the SSO of the java API, and can be protected by copyright.
This decision means that the Structure, Sequence, and Organization (SSO) of an API is not eligible for copyright protection. In short, in this case, it means the specification that makes java java (as opposed to python, ruby, c, etc.) can not be copyrighted.
Note, this does not refer to a document that contains the specification or an implementation of java. Both of those are an expression of the SSO of the java API, and can be protected by copyright.