“Shortly before the holiday weekened, Judge William Alsup, the federal judge presiding over Oracle’s patent and copyright infringement lawsuit against Google, communicated his inclination to order ‘the top executive officers’ of Oracle and Google to participate in a mediation effort, spending one or two full days in court before a Magistrate Judge,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “The court can’t force them to settle on any particular terms, but the court may have the authority to require them to make an effort.”
Mueller writes, “The choice of Andy Rubin and Google’s General Counsel Kent Walker is very questionable. While Google can’t be penalized for the fact that it doesn’t give anyone the title of “President”, those two executives are clearly not at a level with Safra Catz.”
“The current version of Google’s list of “Executive Officers” on the Management page of its website does not include Rubin, nor Walker. By the time I write this, the six persons listed there are Page, Schmidt, Brin, Arora, Drummond, and Pichette. Rubin may report directly to Page, but he’s apparently not among the top six executives. And Walker is not even the top lawyer: that would be David Drummond,” Mueller writes. “I’m sure Judge Alsup will figure this out and draw his conclusions. Maybe he’ll even take a decision that the proposed negotiators are not at the level at which they should be from his point of view.”
Read more in the full article, including Oracles’ and Google’s statements to the court, here.
That’s Google: Do No Evil (and Do No Extra Work We Don’t Have To [like invent something])
What is the significance of this article? Would Andy Rubin not be the best person to represent Google in an Android infringement case that purported to incorporate Java code since Rubin was there from the beginning. Is this a settlement or my title is bigger than yours case? The premise of the article is full of logic holes.
The point of article is that Judge wants Google and Oracle to settle. He wants them to enter negotiations. While Oracle is sending their high-level person, Google is sending second-tier management. The point article is trying to make is that Google is NOT taking Judge’s order seriously and has no intention of negotiating in good faith, therefore they’re sending second-level execs, just to humour the judge.
Thanks Predrag, for the great distillation of this topic. I totally missed the essential point from MDNs short blurb.
Exactly, the Judge wants the decision makers there ….. Not messengers and ……
…… And ….. If Google wants to drag along others, that probably would be OK, too ….
Absolutely, but not only second-tier execs, Oracle objects because Rubin was involved in earlier failed settlement attempts where Google didn’t take the process seriously and the fact that Rubin, being somewhat the cause of the infringements in the first place, may attempt to cover up his mistakes.
It’s a rat’s nest of deceipt.
I think it is the intention of the court to have someone who is in a position to speak for the company… some one who won’t have to clear anything with some one higher up.. Not some night shift assistant manager, some one who has the power to make deals.. I wonder if Google is taking this whole thing seriously ? I sense that the judge is growing tired of Google’s fooling around… Rubin may know all about Android, but does he have the rank to join in a settlement for Google… I doubt it…
Predrag… well said, better than I could…
Andy is VP of mobile at google. Im not sure who else would be better qualified to represent them in a dispute over mobile tech.
Its not like they are going to sit down and hammer something out in 10 minutes. Anything close to an agreement is going to mean both parties return to home base to discuss it.
The article would have merit if they were sending the janitor
Nonsense. If you send Page or Brin or Schmidt, you get someone empowered to make a settlement. Sure, they can go home and cross t’s and dot i’s, but if Rubin has to call Page every hour to ask this or that, it’s utter nonsense when Page has got a fleet of private jumbo jets at his disposal. You screw around with a judge, and you’ll pay for it.
this is about mediation for a negotiated settlement. It is not mathletes or the debate team. has google gone tone deaf and senile? do they rid the bus or take their lunch?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnIfFLifgek?rel=0&w=560&h=345%5D
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnIfFLifgek&version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0%5D
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvHOCqbA6rE%5D