We aren't talking about user interfaces here. This lawsuit does not involve UX. We are talking about interfaces between functional components. The analogy is spot on.
The lawsuit involves UX for a software framework. Which its API constitutes. The user happens to be a developer here and their usage is software development.
Your argument that the copying is once-removed is unfortunately irrelevant to copyright law.
None of those things would work.
Besides, creating minor differences do not solve this problem as they would still be derivative works.
Your question is exactly my point. I'm suggesting what I said earlier:
>> I don't think that's a good analogy at all.
But sure, if you say so.
It's possible to extend any analogy in a way that doesn't make sense, which is what you've done.
It seems like your complaint may be that you simply don't like, or perhaps don't understand, analogies in general.
Let's improve the analogy!
My proposal => that you chose to make the door handles six inches because of UX, and Oracle showed up and said they made theirs six inches before you did.
(For reference none of this is meant to reflect my position on what the law actually is, or should be. I'm just considering analogies here.)
Upholding the API copyright would be like giving Craftsman grounds to sue Ryobi for manufacturing circular saws because Ryobi combined a power cord, an electrical motor, a toothed circular blade and a housing; a state of affairs that only seems even remotely plausible to endorse because source code is inherently a read product.
You look at it and see an authored work. I look at it and I see an n-dimensional turing-space relationship diagram as expressed through transform functions.
And last I checked, you could patent some math(RSA), but not not copyright it. Eventually it's just prior art.