In Java, the clone method is defined in the Object class. All Java classes inherit from the Object class, so every Java object inherits the clone method. However, to successfully use the clone method, some conditions need to be met, one of which is that the cloned class must implement the Cloneable interface.
Although the clone method exists in the Object class, it is a protected method by default. This means that calling the clone method directly in a subclass will cause a compile error because it cannot be accessed from the outside. To use the clone method, we need to override this method in our class and call super.clone() in it to create a new instance. At the same time, in order for the clone method to work properly in a subclass, the subclass must also implement the Cloneable interface.
Therefore, although the clone method is defined in the Object class, to use it correctly, we need to make appropriate settings and overrides in the class that needs to be cloned.