The Google v. Oracle lawsuit and the future of the software industry

Are you struggling to follow the developments and nuances of the Oracle v Google trial? You're in good company: Judge, jury and respective attorneys have strained for weeks to achieve some clarity while the mother of all tech industry patent wars plays out in a San Francisco courtoom.

While Oracle may or may not collect some modest damages, and Google may or may not be granted a mistrial, what's at stake in this case goes far beyond a mere nine lines of code.

If Judge William Alsup decides that application programming interfaces (APIs) can be copyrighted, the ruling's consequences could be extend well beyond the open source development community.

Pretty much every software language and development system will have a new set of IP worries.

View this ZDNet's Hot Topics Webcast: The Google v. Oracle lawsuit and the future of the software industry

Find out about the trial from journalists who were in the courtroom

Learn about the patents and about the potential damages

Discover what impact the trial could have the future of Java, Android and all software development

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Every now and then, a court case comes along that stands to rewrite the legal rules of the computing industry. What new burdens could technology companies face in the wake of this trial?