The court ruled that 'search results are not copyrighted works protected by copyright law' and dismissed Google's lawsuit.

In a lawsuit in which Google sued SerpApi, a tech company that handles search engine APIs, for misuse of search results, the Northern District Court of California rejected Google's DMCA claim. The court ruled that 'search results do not constitute copyrighted works protected under copyright law.'

Google loses key DMCA claims against SerpApi in scraping lawsuit

Hahahaha. Google's claims against SerpAI for scraping search results have been dismissed because…wait for it…Google can't demonstrate it's acting on behalf of the copyright holders.

In other words, if Google wants to refile the suit within the allowed 21 days, it has to admit…

— Katherine Argent (@effthealgorithm) July 22, 2026

In this trial, Google argued that SerpApi was more than just an API; it scraped Google's search results and resold them, claiming that it 'circumvented security measures for copyrighted content.'

Google sues SerpApi for illegally scraping search results - GIGAZINE

Google had also filed a claim under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), but SerpApi had filed a motion to dismiss this claim.

Judge Yvon Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted SerpApi's motion to dismiss the case. However, he also granted Google a grace period to file an amended complaint and suspended the disclosure proceedings until the resulting dismissal motion is resolved.

Judge Rogers ruled that simple, aggregated search results, such as URLs, snippets, and factual index data, are publicly available facts and do not constitute 'works protected by copyright law.' Therefore, Google cannot claim copyright infringement to prevent the scraping of non-copyrighted data. The judge also refused to allow any amendments to the complaint on this point, dismissing Google's argument.

Judge Rogers ruled that Google does not own the copyright to knowledge panels and other content that Google displays that are from third parties. He stated that if Google were to claim a violation of DMCA-based anti-circumvention measures, it would need to prove that the original copyright holders had agreed to Google to implement access control measures on their behalf, and that Google had failed to demonstrate this fact. The judge dismissed this point after giving Google an opportunity to revise its case, ordering it to resubmit the complaint within 21 days if it could provide the necessary evidence.

SerpApi CEO Julian Halegui said of the court's decision, 'This is a victory not only for SerpApi, but for everyone who relies on the open internet,' and indicated their intention to continue helping developers, AI companies, researchers, and various businesses that need access to open search information.