“A federal jury said Wednesday that Google Inc. didn’t infringe Oracle Corp. patents that protect Oracle’s Java technology, handing Google an incremental victory in the companies’ ongoing trial,” Dow Jones/NewsCore reports.
“Oracle sued Google in August 2010, alleging that Google’s Android mobile phone software infringes patents and copyrights that protect Java,” Dow Jones/NewsCore reports. “The verdict delivered Wednesday marks the end of the second, patent phase of the trial, with a third phase yet to come that will determine whatever damages Google may owe. The first part of the trial, which had covered Oracle’s claims that Google infringed copyrights that protect Java, ended with a mixed verdict.”
Dow Jones/NewsCore reports, “An Oracle spokeswoman said in a statement, ‘Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java. We plan to continue to defend and uphold Java’s core write once run anywhere principle and ensure it is protected.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What’d they do for this phase, reconvene the O.J. jury?
Florian Mueller explains for FOSS Patents, “Before this trial started, it had already become crystal clear that the copyright part of the case was going to be the important one, not the patents. It would have been desirable — but less than secondary — for Oracle to prevail on its patent claims.”
“Oracle itself made this set of priorities perfectly clear when it offered in mid-January to stay, or dismiss without prejudice, all of its patent claims in favor of a near-term copyright trial,” Mueller reports. “This just didn’t happen because Judge Alsup wanted to ensure that all claims be adjudicated together. But the mere fact that Oracle officially made such an offer shows that the importance of the patent part of the case is very, very limited.”
Mueller writes, “A jury trial on patent infringement is a lottery since anyone who really would have the knowledge that is needed to understand the issue typically gets excluded. Also, different juries have different tendencies. Google was very lucky with this jury. The fact that Judge Alsup had to overrule the jury on one copyright liability item shows that this is a jury that erred in Google’s favor. And the fact that the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on ‘fair use’ is, besides issues with the related jury instructions, another sign of this jury simply having been very defendant-friendly, even to the point of making a decision that Judge Alsup concluded ‘no reasonably jury could’ make.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Average member of the jury (and by calling them “average,” we’re being extremely charitable): “Duh, Google, we heard of them. Use ’em everyday (except for that Google+ thing). Oracle? What’s that?”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Jury finds Google infringed on some Oracle Java copyrights – May 7, 2012
Oracle: Google execs ‘knew this day would come’ – April 30, 2012
Oracle’s slideshow alleging how Google copied Java – April 18, 2012
No settlement: Oracle and Google will go to trial on April 16th – April 2, 2012