Copyright Infringement: Age Discrimination

Real talk: quick background on my situation — any input appreciated.

competitor copying my API. I've been dealing with this for about 16 months now and teh situation isn't improving lol.

This involves software/code I developed over the past 13 months. I do not have documentation proving my ownership and timeline.

What's the typical outcome in situations like this?

Post-Oracle v. Google, the strongest protections for API developers are usually:

1. Trade secret — if your API implementation contains proprietary algorithms or business logic, trade secret protection may be stronger than copyright
2. Contract/TOS — your API terms of service can prohibit reverse engineering, competitive use, and scraping. Breach of contract doesn't require the high bar of copyright infringement
3. Patent — if your API implements a novel technical process, patent protection is independent of copyright

First step: determine exactly WHAT they copied. API structure alone? Implementation code? Data? Documentation? Each has different legal treatment. Don't assume "they copied my API" means you have a winning copyright case — the answer depends entirely on what specifically was copied.