“I think it’s 50-50 on appeal myself.”
There’s tremendous precedent for reverse engineering implementations based on APIs. Linux and BSD for instance... It’d be disastrous for the tech industry and innovation if that weren’t the case.
This ruling was as it should have been, I seriously doubt that it’s overturned.
No no no. It’s not a question of reverse engineering. Java is free to implement, but there are limitations for commercial use. Limitations that extract royalties once you start using it commercially. Even if you fork the distribution as Google has done.
And this so-called “tremendous precedent for reverse engineering implementations” was ruined and very weakened by the DMCA. But even the remnants of such precedence won’t protect you very long if you start “black boxing” API’s and hardware.
So innovation has already been stifled due to the DMCA and the precedence set through DMCA lawsuits that have been filed.
IMHO this decision has more to do with Googles influence then “reverse engineering”.