Editing Stephen Breyer (section)

===Copyright===
In ''[[Eldred v. Ashcroft]]'', decided on January 15, 2003, Breyer and Justice [[John Paul Stevens]] filed separate dissenting opinions. In his 28-page dissent, Breyer argued that the 20-year retroactive extension of existing copyright granted by the [[Copyright Term Extension Act]] (CTEA) amounted effectively to a grant of perpetual copyright that violated the [[Copyright Clause]] of the Constitution, read in light of the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]]. He argued that the extension would produce a period of protection worth more than 99.8% of protection in perpetuity and that few artists would be more inclined to produce work knowing that their great-grandchildren would receive royalties. He also wrote that the [[fair use]] defense came to no avail either, as it could not help "those who wish to obtain from electronic databases material that is not there", e.g. teachers who can find from online no ideal material to be used in the class as it has been deleted.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Supreme Court Decision on Eldred v Ashcroft - Breyer J., dissenting |url=http://www.copyright.gov/docs/eldredd1.pdf |access-date=November 22, 2010}}</ref> In 2012, he expressed a similar idea in his dissent in ''[[Golan v. Holder]]'', which affirmed the constitutionality of the application of Section 514 of the [[Uruguay Round Agreements Act]] of 1994.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Supreme Court Decision on Golan v Holder |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/302/#tab-opinion-1963687 |access-date=July 6, 2022}}</ref>

In 2005, while joining a unanimous Court in ''[[MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.]]'' against [[peer-to-peer file sharing]] companies [[Grokster]] and [[Streamcast]] on the ground of inducement liability, Breyer wrote a concurrence that the companies would be protected under the [[Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.|''Sony'' doctrine]] without evidence of inducement.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Supreme Court Decision on ''Grokster'' |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/913 |access-date=July 6, 2022}}</ref>

On March 20, 2012, Breyer wrote for a unanimous court in ''[[Mayo v. Prometheus]]'' that patent claims relating to new diagnostic methods of natural phenomena were not patentable as they did not add an "inventive concept to application of the natural laws".<ref>{{cite web |last=Denniston |first=Lyle | url=https://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/opinion-recap-freeing-doctors-to-practice/ | title=Making Sense of Opinion recap: Freeing doctors to practice | website=[[Scotusblog]] | date=June 20, 2012 }}</ref> The patent, which was related to a patient's metabolization of a drug resulting from a determination of effective dosage, was analyzed to determine whether it was of an applied "law of nature" or merely an instruction on applying a [[natural law]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Patel |first=Sailesh | url=https://natlawreview.com/article/supreme-court-s-mayo-v-prometheus-decision-implications-biotechnology | title=The Supreme Court's Mayo v. Prometheus Decision The Implications for Biotechnology | website=[[The National Law Review]] | date=March 23, 2012 }}</ref> In Breyer's analysis, a doctor's administration of an already known drug related only to an identification of an "intended audience" to carry out the practice rather than a transformation of the subject.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dorn |first=Brian | title=Mayo v. Prometheus: A Year Later |journal=ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters | date=June 27, 2013 |volume=4 |issue=7 |pages=572–573 |doi=10.1021/ml400230u |pmid=24900711 |pmc=4027457 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Harmon Arner |first1=Erika |last2=Bianco |first2=Krista | url=https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/ip-updates/a-summary-of-the-supreme-court-s-prometheus-decision.html | title=MA Summary of the Supreme Court's Prometheus Decision | website=[[Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner]] | date=June 21, 2012 }}</ref> Breyer added, "If a law of nature is not patentable, then neither is a process reciting a law of nature, unless that process has additional features that provide practical assurance that the process is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the law of nature itself."<ref>{{cite web |last=Mann |first=Ronald | url=https://www.scotusblog.com/2012/03/court%e2%80%99s-biotech-case-sends-stern-warning-to-federal-circuit-and-software-designers/ | title=Court's biotech case sends stern warning to Federal Circuit and software designers | website=[[SCOTUSblog]] | date=March 21, 2012 }}</ref>

In ''[[American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc.]]'', decided on June 25, 2014, Breyer delivered the majority opinion, ruling that [[Aereo]], allowing subscribers to view near-live streams of over-the-air television on Internet-connected devices, operated so overwhelmingly similar to the cable companies that it violated the right of public performance of the networks' copyrighted work.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Supreme Court Decision on ''Aereo'' |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/431 |access-date=July 6, 2022}}</ref>

In ''[[Google v. Oracle]]'', decided on April 5, 2021, Breyer wrote the 38-page majority opinion, holding that Google's copying of 11,500 lines of Java declaring code (0.4% of all Java code) constituted fair use because "three of these packages were ... fundamental to being able to use the Java language at all". Breyer explained, "By using the same declaring code for those packages, programmers using the Android platform can rely on the method calls that they are already familiar with to call up particular tasks (e.g., determining which of two integers is the greater); but Google's own implementing programs carry out those tasks. Without that copying, programmers would need to learn an entirely new system to call up the same tasks."<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 5, 2021 |title=Google v. Oracle |url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956diff_2024.pdf |access-date=May 22, 2021 |website=supremecourt.gov}}</ref>