Justices won't hear Google appeal in dispute with Oracle

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is staying out of a long-running legal battle between technology giants Oracle and Google over copyright protection for a computer program that powers most of the world’s smartphones and computer tablets.

The justices say they won’t review an appeals court ruling that said software maker Oracle Corp. could copyright portions of the Java programming platform that Google Inc. used to build its popular Android software for mobile devices.

Oracle is seeking roughly $1 billion in damages for claims that Google stole some of the Java technology that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems Inc.

A federal district court ruled in 2012 that federal copyright laws didn’t cover the program. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, saying it was copyright protected.