is this
What they call going cap in hand.....
A very big and full cap in hand I might add.
Google has proposed terms its on-going patent spat with Oracle over Java's contribution to Android by offering Ellison's crew a payment for past infractions and a miniscule slice of further revenues from the operating system, should Google be found to be in violation. According to court papers (PDF) filed on Tuesday, Google is …
As there is now a lot more to lose now...
Oracle has has nearly all their patents invalidated on appeal, the 104 has been invalidated but is not yet 'final'. The final patent the '520 is not expected to apply and runs out soon.
The final claims are of copyright over the APIs (and the 11 unused files). Now this has a significant impact to the whole of the software industry, if Oracle were to win a claim in this area.
Google would not want to settle out of court unless there was a full admission that there was no infringement and the claims withdrawn with prejudice (difficult to make a settlement then). Oracle don't want to delay as there is a chance that there will be no patents left for them and therefore their purchase of Sun is written off to an extent.
An already shaky Oracle (in the eyes of some of its shareholders) would have to accept that the lawsuit was bogus, it has cost it millions, lost its 'prime' assets that they bought from Sun in the meantime and had to take regularly their eye off their core business for a couple of years. In this case they have put all their eggs in one basket because they have claimed that the six patents are the core patents that are worth nearly all the cost of the patent portfolio from Sun (so as to astronomically raise the potential damages of their claim). As these 6 are looking to be worth very little if anything then the whole portfolio is also worth very little.
You're right that the money is now (even admitted by Oracle) very little in the scheme of things Oracle's only hope is that they win the case on every count - they could then look at a claim of less than $50 million. This is by winning with a patent that has been invalidated (but not 'final') and claiming copyright on their APIs - unlikely. Even Oracle are unlikely to expect to win this.
This case is very similar to the SCO saga that wiped out the whole of SCO - and they do have something in common. Their lawyers are from that same 'maverick' firm - Boies Schiller.
The copyright theory BS&F are pushing is to all intents *identical* to the one they invented for SCO vs the world, analysed to shreds but not tested in court. BS&F spent 10s $mil of their own cash on that attack and are now recycling it on the cheap. Wonder if Oracle are paying full whack?
The massive analysis done in SCO vs IBM established that somewhere between 99 & 100% of it conflicts with established precedent. The danger is that as a whole its still a nearly (*) new legal theory and that always leaves some room for a court to do something stupid.
(* in reality their theory is essentially the same as the 'look&feel' cases of the 80/90s and we know how well that worked out. So old theory, recycled in new dressings, headed for the same fail)
Near the start of this affair I predicted any damages collected would be less than the costs. We're nearly there. But we really need this to get to court, until it gets squashed with prejudice it will just reappear every decade. If Oracle win this is a disaster for an entire industry - not just this case. Lets see it die now.
Ah, Florian, occasional sucker at the Microsoft teat... just been caught failing to report a pretty catastrophic loss for Microsoft at the ITC before Xmas.
When Linux Torvalds got deposed by Microsoft and proceeded to shred their often used VFAT patents with prior art in the deposition... you'd think an avid patent watcher, patent agitator and active follower of that case (possibly the only active one) might just notice and share the news. Instead it went unreported.
And unreported by the lazy news outlets relying on the Mueller dripfeed of biased news instead of actual journalism.
SCO will prevail and it will be the death of Linux .... as far as I can determine nothing he stated as a fact has come to pass at all.
Oracle will prevail and it will be the end of Android. Google will have to pay Oracle over 2.2 Billion dollars and that's going to happen..... Nope, they might get a couple of million dollars... big deal. Once again he's totally missed the target... by several miles.
Why do The Register (and the BBC) insist on quoting Mueller like he is some sort of expert. He is no more an expert than a lot of people out there. He would seem never to comment on anything that doesn't fit into his world view.
> He would seem never to comment on anything that doesn't fit into his world view.
Florian Mueller is *paid* to comment on stuff. He is *paid* to promote one particular view. This is a matter of record - just have a look through your choice of search engine results.
He is the very definition of astroturfing.
It amazes me that any media organisation takes him seriously - I mean, just look at his record. The number of times he has been right is entirely insignificant compared to the number of times he is completely and totally wrong.
I had hoped ElReg would have seen through him by now. Then again, ElReg does carry a *lot* of Microsoft advertising...
Vic.
Google have offered Oracle a back out of this farce of a law suit and save face, but Oracles' lawyers want to fight on to 'protect' the increasingly irrelevant J2ME with dubious patents, the f'wits!
Oracle should just sack their incompetent lawyers and end the lawsuit amicably.