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The federal court's decision followed a year of court delays,

Feb. 20, 2019 by Ella Pickett

The federal court's decision followed a year of court delays, with the decision coming on Thursday. Google's request could force it to reconsider, and the government has since been granted an injunction to stop the government from removing the software from the market.

"Google's legal challenges to the new rule would not only be a victory for Java programmers, but also for other software programmers who work with Google, and their communities, through the Java community," wrote Google spokesman Steve Kestenbaum. "We believe that this decision is a significant step forward for the Java community and its communities, and we support the decision to allow the software to be used freely to build new software applications for the Java platform."

Google argued that because it was seeking to protect Java, it had no legal obligation to do so.

"A patent holder is no longer permitted to sell or create any work to third parties to use for commercial purposes, such as the purpose of developing or distributing a new version of a computer program," the company wrote. "A patent holder cannot use a work that is, for any reason, derivative of any work that is a successor to the work of the patent holder that was previously developed.

"The new rule allows a patent holder to license a work to third parties for commercial use — in this case, for commercial purposes," the company added.

"The court's ruling will allow Google to use Java code and applications across its entire Java community — and it would put the work back in a unique repository so that it has access to the APIs that make up the Java ecosystem," Kestenbaum added.