On many days, the San Francisco courtroom where he presided was more like a computer science classroom. Alsup acknowledged during the trial that he had learned about Java coding to better prepare for the case, and it showed. On a daily basis, he would deftly query the lawyers and expert witnesses on the structure, sequence, and organizations of APIs to assist the jury in understanding the key facets of the copyright phase of the trial.
Judge Alsup is 67 years old.
Oracle plans to appeal Alsup’s ruling . The company faces an uphill battle given the judge’s ruling is rich in context, with detailed deconstructions of the Java language and APIs, as well as the expected legal citations and examples. It will likely serve as a textbook for future cases involving intellectual property rights and computer programming languages.
When I told my intended final year essay supervisor that I wanted to write about how technology could improve Nigeria’s judiciary, he flipped and threatened me. I managed to get reassigned to the faculty dean who was supposed to be technology savvy, but even he practically phoned it in. Don’t study law in…never mind.