I agree with you about the laches defense of Harmony, and yes, I do think Google got the things from Harmony.

Also, I'm told by Java experts that Google and Java are not word-for-word similar in that while they are identical by way of:

Type FunctionName(Type, Type)

the variable names of the arguments are different in many cases:

where Java might say:

int Compare(String left, String right)

Google's says something like:

int Compare(String s1, String s2)

Anyway, I do disagree that the API is just the function declarations. You need the semantics: the API must include something that explains the semantics to be an API.