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back to article Oracle looking for $1.16bn, not $2.2bn, in Java patent case

Oracle is looking for around $1.16bn in damages from Google over the Java patent throwdown, and not the $2.2bn the Chocolate Factory has been whinging about. Google had said that an estimation of damages submitted to the court by Oracle's damages expert Iain Cockburn, a Boston University business professor, showed that Oracle …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Wrong

    The author of this one hasn't done much research I guess. The damages claims haven't really dropped at all:

    1. Damages are merely the consolation prize. They want an injunction, not damages. With an injunction they have google by the balls, and can demand a license fee *per phone* plus damages. $20 per phone, over the lifetime of android or the patents? If google sell a billion phones that's $20bn. Plus the damages.

    2. The previous damages figures covered a different time period. Like, the lifetime of android. The new figure is for *past* damages only. Future damages are likely to be bigger than the past ones

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Had Google just licensed Java in the first place they would only be paying pennies per phone, but they were greedy and didn't want to pay up.

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  2. hahnchen
    Flame

    "...a social gaming invention think tank"

    What the hell is a social gaming invention think tank?

    It's a patent troll. That's what it is.

    Here is a patent filed in 2010 (and *granted*) for an in-game MMO marriage.

    http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=bmjnAQAAEBAJ

    The USPTO is fucking ridiculous.

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  3. Paul Shirley
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    $100m to Sun?

    "The interesting thing about this case is that Google really could have gotten the licence [from Oracle] some time ago for $100m or something like that... but they didn't do that,"

    Not quite. There were discussions with Sun, the most serious one involving ~$50mil upfront and revenue share downstream plus assorted IP right sharing. But there's no sign Sun were interested in agreeing to that in the court filings. It looks like Google tried offering Sun a pile of money to create a new OSS Java and Sun didn't want to play.

    The only unilateral option Google had was licensing J2ME, SE was forbidden on mobile by Sun. Android would be crippled if based on J2ME. So no, Google didn't decline a $100mil chance to licence, Sun didn't give them the option.

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    1. cloudgazer
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      Thumb Down

      Actually it only looks like Google considered offering Sun a pile of money and a share of profits, there's no evidence come out thus far showing that they actually did so.

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  4. IGnatius T Foobar
    Facepalm

    a what?

    The fact that there is such a thing as a "social gaming invention think tank" in existence means that the entire world has gone loopy and needs to be rebooted.

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    1. Captain DaFt
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      I wouldn't go so far as that.

      Just a few select heads, booted hard, and repeatedly.

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  5. xperroni
    Headmaster

    "Google really could have gotten the licence [from Oracle] some time ago for $100m"

    Except that the license terms wouldn't have allowed Google to use Java SE on a mobile device, and we'd be stuck in a courtroom just the same.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New business model?

    Is this the new business model...when sales dip, the only way to increase/maintain revenue is to sue people?

    In which case Oracle are on a roll...

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Normally I'd be a hilariously sneery idiot next to you, except the major flaw with your argument is that Oracle are one of the few software companies out there bucking the sales dip trend and actually increasing sales. As they have done quarter, after quarter, after quarter, etc.

      The other fail here is of course that you're suggesting big companies should just bend over and get raped for their IP and technology, for free.

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  7. NoneSuch Silver badge

    Google: Buy a majority position in Sun Microsystems and get on with business.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Yes, because Larry is going to let 51% of "Sun" go for less than $1.16bn, isn't he.

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  8. Turtle

    "Weren't Important"

    ". . . Google had made up its mind some time ago that patents weren't important to it,. . . "

    I would love to see the rationale for this kind of decision. Because a company, making billions of dollars from one single patent (the PageRank patent), must have had a good idea of what a patent can be worth. And knowing that, they had to understand that other companies would defend their patents in the same way that Google would defend its own patents. And they just decided that other people's patents "weren't important".

    I just can not imagine the thinking behind that.

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  9. BasevaInc
    Joke

    Cocksburn and the Chocolate factory...

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