The clone method is protected in the Object class. This is because unless your class implements Cloneable interface, calling the clone method will result in a CloneNotSupported. Since it is protected so only your class can call that method. Any other class cannot call the clone method on the instances of your class. If you implement Cloneable in your class, then you can create a public clone method and call super.clone so that other classes can clone instances of your class...