[Really important opinion post by former House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte on Google’s attack on copyright in the vitally important Oracle case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct 7. Nice to see the Chairman back in the fight!]

Once or twice a generation, the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case so monumental, so groundbreaking in its potential to change the law, that it shapes Americans’ rights for years to come. These occasions are nothing short of paradigm-shifting, and the upcoming Supreme Court case Google v. Oracle is one of them.

On October 7, the Justices will hear oral arguments in this case, which many lawyers have referred to as the copyright case of the century. It will mark the first time the High Court rules on the copyrightability of software since Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976—the law that governs the country’s entire copyright system. As such, it will set a crucial precedent for the future of copyright law and the United States’ economy in the digital age by either protecting IP from systematic domestic and foreign copying or offering these cases legal protection.

Google v. Oracle was initially filed nearly a decade ago after Google inquired about licensing portions of Oracle’s popular computer platform, Java, but elected to copy it instead. It then used the replicated code to build software for its mobile operating system, Android.

Read the post on Newsweek.