The landmark copyright lawsuit between tech giants&nbsp;Google and&nbsp;Oracle has puzzled and divided the&nbsp;Supreme Court of the&nbsp;United States of America.

Trying to resolve an $8 billion-plus copyright dispute, the shorthanded court, down one justice following last month's death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,&nbsp;heard oral arguments on Wednesday.

The case has been revived after&nbsp;Google's appeal to review&nbsp;a lower court ruling&nbsp;in which&nbsp;Oracle&nbsp;sought&nbsp;damages from the company for&nbsp;copying thousands of lines of computer code from its popular Java programming language without a license in order to make Android, a competing platform that has harmed&nbsp;Oracle's business.

To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. But it also used 11,330 lines of code and an organisation that's part of Oracle's Java platform.

Google says what it did is long-settled, common practice in the industry, a practice that has been good for technical progress. And it says there is no copyright protection for the purely functional, noncreative computer code it used, something that couldn't be written another way. But Oracle says Google committed an ''egregious act of plagiarism''&nbsp;and sued.

A jury cleared Google in 2016, but the US&nbsp;Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that decision in 2018, finding that Google's inclusion of&nbsp;Oracle's software code in Android was not permissible under US&nbsp;copyright law.

Google lawyer Thomas Goldstein told the justices that the disputed Java code should not receive copyright protection because it was the "the only way" to create new programs using the programming language.

Chief Justice John Roberts suggested Google still should have paid&nbsp;Oracle&nbsp;for a license to Java.

"Cracking the safe may be the only way to get the money that you want, but that doesn't mean you can do it," Roberts said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned Goldstein on whether Google had simply piggybacked on&nbsp;Oracle's innovation.

Gorsuch asked, "What do we do about the fact that the other competitors, Apple, Microsoft ... have, in fact, been able to come up with phones that work just fine without engaging in this kind of copying?"

Oracle&nbsp;and Google, two California-based technology giants with combined annual revenues of about $200 billion, have been feuding since&nbsp;Oracle&nbsp;sued for copyright infringement in 2010 in federal court in San Francisco.

Google has said the shortcut commands it copied into Android do not warrant copyright protection because they help developers write programs to work across platforms, a key to software innovation.

The landmark copyright lawsuit between tech giants Google and Oracle has puzzled and divided the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Trying to resolve an $8 billion-plus copyright dispute, the shorthanded court, down one justice following last month's death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, heard oral arguments on Wednesday.

The landmark copyright lawsuit between tech giants Google and Oracle has puzzled and divided the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Trying to resolve an $8 billion-plus copyright dispute, the shorthanded court, down one justice following last month's death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, heard oral arguments on Wednesday. The case has been revived after Google's appeal to review a lower court ruling in which Oracle sought damages from the company for copying thousands of lines of computer code from its popular Java programming language without a license in order to make Android, a competing platform that has harmed Oracle's business. To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. But it also used 11,330 lines of code and an organisation that's part of Oracle's Java platform. Google says what it did is long-settled, common practice in the industry, a practice that has been good for technical progress. And it says there is no copyright protection for the purely functional, noncreative computer code it used, something that couldn't be written another way. But Oracle says Google committed an ''egregious act of plagiarism'' and sued. A jury cleared Google in 2016, but the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that decision in 2018, finding that Google's inclusion of Oracle's software code in Android was not permissible under US copyright law. Google lawyer Thomas Goldstein told the justices that the disputed Java code should not receive copyright protection because it was the "the only way" to create new programs using the programming language. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested Google still should have paid Oracle for a license to Java. "Cracking the safe may be the only way to get the money that you want, but that doesn't mean you can do it," Roberts said. Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned Goldstein on whether Google had simply piggybacked on Oracle's innovation. Gorsuch asked, "What do we do about the fact that the other competitors, Apple, Microsoft ... have, in fact, been able to come up with phones that work just fine without engaging in this kind of copying?" Oracle and Google, two California-based technology giants with combined annual revenues of about $200 billion, have been feuding since Oracle sued for copyright infringement in 2010 in federal court in San Francisco. Google has said the shortcut commands it copied into Android do not warrant copyright protection because they help developers write programs to work across platforms, a key to software innovation.

US Supreme Court puzzled over Google, Oracle high tech copyright clash

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US Supreme Court puzzled over Google, Oracle high tech copyright clash