Oracle Corp won a major legal victory on Monday in a closely watched copyright case involving the company's Java programming language as the US Supreme Court declined to hear Google Inc's appeal.
The decision upholds a ruling that allows Oracle to seek licensing fees for the use of some of the Java language. Google had said it should be able to use Java without paying a fee.
The case involves how much copyright protection should extend to Java. Google, which used Java to design its Android smartphone operating system, said in court papers that an Oracle victory would obstruct "an enormous amount of innovation" because software developers would not be able to build freely on each others' work.
