Amici
List of Amici Curiae Software Innovators, Start-ups, and Investors in Support of Affirmance
Oracle v. Google, Appeals No. 2013-1021 & No. 2013-1022
Below is the full list of signatories to the BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF SOFTWARE INNOVATORS, START-UPS, AND INVESTORS IN SUPPORT OF AFFIRMANCE in Oracle v. Google. The case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Amici are represented by the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Full list of amici curiae (alphabetical):
Apiary, Inc.
As APIs are becoming the lingua franca of the Internet, Apiary provides a platform where software developers from 120 countries worldwide come to design, document and develop their APIs. We are in a unique position to assess the state of the industry, as tens of thousands of developers are building their APIs using our product. And we can see very clearly that uncertainty about the legal status of API interoperability will set the whole industry back by a decade.
Azavea, Inc.
Azavea creates software that applies digital mapping technology to civic and social challenges. Most of our clients are municipal government, non-profit organizations and academic or federal research projects. Our products and services cover many civic domains including: elections, digital humanities, crime, water and land conservation. Azavea is a B Corporation, a social enterprise whose mission is to improve communities through the application of geospatial technology and advancing the state-of-the-art through research.
Daniel Bricklin
Daniel Bricklin is known as the “father of the spreadsheet” for his role in creating VisiCalc, the pioneering electronic spreadsheet. Mr. Bricklin also helped develop one of the first screen-based word processing systems in the mid-1970s, and did pioneering work on electronic ink. His products have proven to be catalysts for the growth of the computer industry. Beyond his extensive experience directly innovating and creating products in the software marketplace, Mr. Bricklin is uniquely situated to assist the court’s understanding of this case’s impact: He provided extensive testimony in the Lotus Development v. Paperback Software lawsuit. Mr. Bricklin strongly believes that the court in Lotus v. Borland reached the correct decision in finding that software elements that constitute a method of operation are not copyrightable.
Bright Funds, Inc.
Bright Funds is changing how people manage their charitable giving. The Bright Funds platform creates a seamless giving experience, allowing users to donate to the causes they care about through a curated list of charitable organizations. The platform allows users to manage all of their giving in one place, from creating a unique giving portfolio to tax reporting and accounting.
Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings and founder of HICCup. She actively invests in start-ups, guiding many of them as a board member. Her board seats include 23andMe, Eventful, IBS Group (Russia, advisory board), Meetup, NewspaperDirect, Voxiva, WPP Group, XCOR Aerospace and Yandex. Some of her other investments include Evernote, Square, Omada Health, Directly and Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!).
EDventure Holdings
See "Esther Dyson" above.
Engine Advocacy
Engine creates an environment where technological innovation and entrepreneurship thrive by providing knowledge about the start-up economy and constructing smarter public policy. To that end, Engine conducts research, organizes events, and spearheads campaigns to educate elected officials, the entrepreneur community and the general public on issues vital to fostering technological innovation. Engine has worked with the White House, Congress, federal agencies, and state and local governments to discuss policy issues, write legislation, and introduce the tech community to Washington insiders. Engine has over 500 member companies, including Mozilla, Uber, AgLocal, LivingSocial, Yelp and Causes.
fasterlighterbetter d/b/a Copper
Copper is a tipping and appreciation service. Copper offers fans a one-click option to support content authors in their work. Fans can tip any URL on the Web. Copper takes care of finding and paying the author. Copper presents a model for monetizing the Internet that is flexible, advertisement free, and builds a web of reciprocity. It exists to help build an Internet filled with creativity, ingenuity, and diverse perspectives.
Foundry Group
(http://www.foundrygroup.com/wp/)
Foundry Group is a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet, and software start-ups. Our passion is working alongside entrepreneurs to give birth to new technologies and to build those technologies into industry-leading companies. We are centrally located in Boulder, Colorado, but we invest in companies across North America.
Robert Glushko
(http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~glushko/)
Professor Robert Glushko teaches at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. He co-founded Veo Systems, which pioneered the use of the interoperable extensible markup language (XML) for business-to-business communication. Professor Glushko has written on the benefits of open standards to future innovation, and previously served on the Board of Directors for the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), an international open standards consortium. He can assist the Court by providing knowledge about the importance of open standards and interoperability in business communications.
Hattery
Hattery is an investment business that builds extraordinary companies. By providing in-depth, collaborative services, including advocacy, research, and strategic consulting, Hattery cultivates start-ups and helps them scale. Each and every Hattery-supported start-up relies on at least one application programming interface (API). Accordingly, Hattery is keenly interested in the outcome of this case and its effect on default copyright rules as they apply to APIs, which strongly affect software innovation by start-ups as it is practiced today.
Mitchell Kapor
Mitchell Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation. He designed Lotus 1-2-3, one of the first computer spreadsheet programs, the adoption of which spurred the growth of personal computers. Currently, Mr. Kapor runs Kapor Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in information technology companies aspiring to generate economic value and positive social impact. Beyond offering information about how copyright rules can affect start-up capital, Mr. Kapor is uniquely situated to assist the Court’s understanding of this case’s impact: Lotus 1-2-3 was the subject of a similar, high-profile copyright dispute in 1995, Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int’l, Inc., 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995), aff’d by an equally divided court, 516 U.S. 233 (1996). Despite the fact that his former company was plaintiff in Lotus v. Borland, Mr. Kapor strongly believes that the Lotus court reached the correct decision in finding that software elements that constitute a method of operation are not copyrightable.
Katkar Flink Corporation d/b/a Hipiti
Hipiti is a marketing data analytics company. They build tools that help shoppers know when to buy and analytics that show retailers how to better discount and what sells. Their beta consumer tool, hipiti.com, organizes sales and new arrivals from 150 national retailers and flash sale sites. Sales are algorithmically rated to highlight only the best offers and offer new brand discovery features.
Mozilla Corporation
Mozilla has been a pioneer and advocate for the Web for more than a decade. Mozilla creates and promotes open standards that enable innovation and advance the Web as a platform for all. Today, hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Mozilla Firefox to discover, experience and connect to the Web on computers, tablets and mobile phones.
Tim O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly founded O’Reilly Media, the leading publisher of computer manuals and guides to software programming. Mr. O’Reilly frequently writes and presents about the importance of open platforms to innovation. He is a key figure in the open source software community, and has hosted the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) for fourteen years. Mr. O’Reilly is interested in ensuring that copyright’s foundational principles continue to support innovation, and in how the outcome of this case affects innovators, including the open source community
Raymond Ozzie
Ray Ozzie is a software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft Corp. between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for his role in creating Lotus Notes. He is currently founder and CEO of Talko Inc., a startup developing consumer and business communications services for the web and mobile devices.
Union Square Ventures, LLC
Union Square Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City that invests in companies that innovate in the applications layer of the Internet. We back companies that focus on creating highly scalable services and that create innovations of significant value for their end users.
Zubhium, Inc. d/b/a Vessel
Vessel provides a comprehensive suite of tools in one vehicle, making it easy to solve problems and track progress, to help developers focus on inventing and building better mobile apps. We help Android and iOS developers build better applications.
