“A new filing by Oracle sheds light on the damages claims issue… Damages can be substantial but they are not what Oracle is primarily trying to get out of this case,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “They are a potentially substantial consolation prize. The grand prize, however, is an injunction, and Oracle’s filing makes this clear with the following statement, which explains why Oracle’s new damages computation — unlike the old one that included damages until the year 2025 — relates only to past damages and apparently provides only some data points with a view to future damages, which would be rendered totally irrelevant by an injunction.”
Third, Google complains that Prof. Cockburn does not ‘provide a firm calculation of future damages.’ The Court directed that past and future royalties not be mixed by advancing royalties in a lump-sum payment. Prof. Cockburn complied. Oracle intends to strenuously pursue injunctive relief to resolve the key issue in this case: whether Google can use Oracle’s intellectual property to create an incompatible clone of Java and thereby undermine Oracle’s and many others’ investments in ‘write once, run anywhere.’ If future royalties are applied, it is well established that they should be based on a separate, post-verdict assessment.
Mueller reports, “Compared to the above paragraph, forget all the billion-dollar figures that make headlines. Besides explaining that the new damages computation doesn’t specify future damages but wants those to be subject to a “separate, post-verdict assessment” (which would be made only in the event Oracle is denied an injunction), it’s a clear vow to fight hard for an injunction…”
Much more in the full article here.