Is it true for the following opinion? I was told that the decision would be a 
binding precedent in all US. I am really confused by the contradiction.

> "1. The Federal Circuit’s decision is not binding precedent in any 
> other case in any district court anywhere in the country. Because this 
> case arose in the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit was required to 
> apply Ninth Circuit precedent. But its interpretation of Ninth Circuit 
> precedent is not binding on district courts in the Ninth Circuit, or 
> any other circuit. Thus, a district court in San Jose or Seattle is 
> free to ignore the Federal Circuit’s misinterpretation of Sega v. 
> Accolade and Sony v. Connectix."

-----邮件原件-----
发件人: Richard Fontana [mailto:[email protected]] 
发送时间: 2014年5月17日 21:11
收件人: Joshua Gay
抄送: [email protected]
主题: Re: Oracle vs Google: APIs are copyright; appeal decision ramifications?

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 01:17:09PM -0400, Joshua Gay wrote:
> I don't understand how these things work well enough to formulate my 
> own opinion, but I've been hearing mixed opinions on precedent. Here 
> is Jonathan Band's take on the matter of precedent,
> <http://www.project-disco.org/intellectual-property/051214-further-reflections-on-oracle-v-google/>:
> 
> "1. The Federal Circuit’s decision is not binding precedent in any 
> other case in any district court anywhere in the country. Because this 
> case arose in the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit was required to 
> apply Ninth Circuit precedent. But its interpretation of Ninth Circuit 
> precedent is not binding on district courts in the Ninth Circuit, or 
> any other circuit. Thus, a district court in San Jose or Seattle is 
> free to ignore the Federal Circuit’s misinterpretation of Sega v. 
> Accolade and Sony v. Connectix."
> 
> "To be sure, other district courts may find the Federal Circuit’s 
> reasoning to be persuasive, but it is not binding. And as these 
> district courts dig into the Federal Circuit’s reasoning, they quickly 
> will conclude that it is not that persuasive. The Federal Circuit 
> certainly undermined its credibility with its assertion that Google 
> and its amici believe that software should not be protectable under 
> copyright. The Federal Circuit itself flatly contradicts this 
> assertion when it observed that"

FWIW I believe what Jonathan says about precedent here is correct. 

 - RF


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