Oracle campaigns for third Android Java infringement trial Oracle appears to have opened its campaign for a third trial over its claims its copyrighted Java core library code was ripped off in Google's Android. In May this year, a jury ruled in favor of Google, saying that Google's infringement of Oracle's copyright was fair use. Now the database software giant's lawyers are trying to …
Oracle's lawyers must have been reading the history of the SCO case.
That one still raises its head out of the slimy grave it was consigned to every so often.
The SCO vs IBM case was started in 2003
Why don't they just give up and use the money to help Larry buy a Country, say north korea.
".....Why don't they just give up and use the money to help Larry buy a Country, say north korea." Hmmm, given Larry's appetite for aggressive lawfare and acquisitions, I'm not sure it would be such a good idea to let him have a country with a massive military conditioned to following the whims of an egomaniac!
If they can have the current case retried, they have another chance of winning, and STILL have the option to appeal.
Plus, the longer it goes on the greater the chance they can show harm to the Java market, and try to link Java's decline to Android's rise. So it makes sense to drag it out longer.
True, one of the problems with the legal system in the US. If you have the cash, and Oracle does, you can just drag this stuff out forever. It sounds like the Judge told Oracle that if they have been with Google bringing Play store to Chromebooks (the reason Oracle is feigning outrage), they can go ahead and sue Google over Chrome OS.... so this stuff will just drag on and on... until Google gets sick of this noise and acquires Oracle. It actually isn't that far fetched. Google is all about getting into the enterprise IT market these days. It is their next big thing... and if it looks like they might have to cut Oracle some massive check, who knows.
...seems like a hiding to nothing for Oracle. Google are already aware of any "legal issues" so presumably they will have considered their move to Chrome Books carefully. As Google are switching to OpenJDK soon anyway (whose code base was endorsed by Sun) there really doesn't seem to be much meat left on the bone.
Google's use of Harmony to create Android was endorsed by Sun. How much has that helped?
The difference is that OpenJDK is GPLv2 (and has the ClassPath exception); that very explicitly prohibits field-of-use restrictions, so attempting to make a case out of tat would mean no-one could use OpenJDK. That's not going to fly...
Vic.
Would the OpenJDK API not be essentially identical to that of Oracle's JDK? I don't do Java programming and don't know the answer, but it seems possibly relevant. If the API is the same (or near enough) could Oracle reasonably claim infringement by Google without also claiming infringement by everyone else using OpenJDK? Or would the fact that they have not (and maybe because of licensing cannot) claim infringement by OpenJDK developers and maintainers invalidate any claims they might be making?
It's not the code, it's the licence. Until Nougat, Google did not accept or use an open source Java licence. Neither did it get a Sun licence. Since Sun holds copyright in Java, or now Oracle, this was a breach of copyright. Well it was, until Google won a fair use argument. Now Google is complying with copyright since it has accepted OpenJDK, but this doesn't change history.
You didn't need a licence for Java, you only needed a licence for the compatibility kit. Essentially, if you want to call it Java and have advertise it as compatible cross platform then you needed a licence.
Copyright for APIs was never an issue, it never has been until now. Sun didn't see a problem with Harmony or Davlik and even endorsed it (they still do). Oracle had a bug bear with Sun for not making Java more open and even open sourcing the compatibility kit.
That was until they needed to realise shareholder benefit from their Sun purchase so started a patent infringement trial against Google. When that fell flat on its face they changed it to a copyright trial.
It seems like Sun's Java licensing or not licensing was design by lawyers, for lawyers. The lawyers will make more money off of these Java lawsuits than Sun did, especially if Oracle somehow eeks out a victory (unlikely, it would seem... they have already lost a couple of times) and the software world gets turned upside down.
Would the OpenJDK API not be essentially identical to that of Oracle's JDK?
Yes.
If the API is the same (or near enough) could Oracle reasonably claim infringement by Google without also claiming infringement by everyone else using OpenJDK?
No.
See how daft the whole thing is?
Vic.
Android chose to use Dalvik instead of things like OpenJDK all those years ago, apparently for performance reasons but at the (and this is one of those coincidences that Google may end up regretting) expense of being byte code compatible with Java. This had the effect of creating a kind-of walled garden effect; Java apps won't run on Android without being recompiled (at the very least), and Android apps won't run anywhere else either.
If nothing else, that got on Sun/Oracle's nerves. Byte code compatibility is something that Sun and seemingly Oracle are keen on.
And of course as it turns out there's nothing particularly performant about Dalvik anyway, it's not especially different to any other Java-ish runtime. If they had simply picked up OpenJDK all those years ago then I doubt we'd have noticed any real difference in the success or performance of Android, and we'd likely not be having this endless series of legal cases now.
Still, it gives us all something to get hot and bothered about, so it's serving some useful purpose keeping us commentards engaged instead of wandering around the pubs drinking excessive quantities of alcopops.
Oracle got big by being out front with a technology that worked well and fulfilled customers' needs at the time. Nowadays, they appear to be mainly resting on their laurels and starting to fade away as technology changes leave them behind.
It seems that when some companies start to loose their innovative edge and trend downwards, there is a tendency to resort to lawsuits. I guess the motto is: "If you can't compete, sue." Another poster mentioned SCO, and Blackberry (RIM) also comes to mind, too, as they seem to be starting down this path.
Perhaps this is a form of corporate evolution? Innovation and good customer service, then market dominance, then arrogance and failure to keep up with others, then patent troll and eventual (we all hope) extinction?
Er, you forgot to mention the ludicrous "rounded corners" case brought by Apple against Samsung, which is still rumbling along in several ways.
There is a big difference between SCO and BlackBerry/Oracle. SCO really didn't have a case at all, as was demonstrated at practically every stage of that crazy long running series of court appearances.
In contrast, BlackBerry have already been successful in defending their IPR in court, and may very well be in the new case against Avaya. It's some moderately substantial patents that they're attempting to enforce, and whilst they're not in the best of commercial health at the moment they're definitely not a Non Practising Entity. That have also lost and settled at least one case brought against them.
In Oracle vs Google it is not disputed that Google copied Oracle copyrighted material, and it's far from certain that Google will get away with it.
It is wholly reasonable that respectable companies should be able to defend their IPR. There absolutely has to be a level playing field for IPR, otherwise people will stop inventing it. And that's bad for the economy. As for losing an innovative edge with age, well that's just the way it goes. Spending a lot of money innovating means having to milk the resultant market for all its worth for as long as possible. Just because a company did all it's really cutting edge stuff a long time ago doesn't mean that it's no longer useful or profitable, nor should anyone be allowed to take it away from them.
I think that some tech companies have been, well, fairly reckless in their approach ignoring other company's IPR holdings. For instance, if Google end up losing a vast sum of money to Oracle over this case, the board members may have to personally justify the decisions they made a long time ago in court cases raised by their own shareholders. That kind of thing can become personally quite expensive in the US.
We may in years to come look back on the history of Google over the past few years and see the period as being an unwise collection of overly risky decisions. There's the various anti-trust cases with the EU that probably won't go Google's way. Their tax evasion practises will eventually force the US government into passing legislation that could end up costing Google and Apple and Amazon a lot of money. The way they lost control of Android in China is, I think, a massive mistake that has been masked by their current success and was entirely avoidable had their technological strategy been different (they just threw the Android source code over the wall without stopping to think whether it was a wise idea or not). By comparison tinkering around with self-driving cars (which will almost certainly prove fruitless) is trifling small change.
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