Google To Pay $0 To Oracle In Copyright Case 250
An anonymous reader writes "In a hearing in the US District Court today, it was determined that Google will pay a net total of nothing for Oracle's patent claims against them. In fact, Google is given 14 days to file an application for Oracle to pay legal fees to Google (in a similar manner to how things are done for frivolous lawsuits). However, it is not quite peaches and roses for Google, as Oracle is planning on appealing the decision in the case.'"
Oracle (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Weird ruling (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Apple's patents fall into two major categories: "design patents" that cover appearance, and UI innovations that come about because Apple has done a good job of pushing the frontiers of the user experience.
"Rounded corners" and such are an example of the design patents, and that is a whole different category from technology patents like the ones on Java. Does not apply; moving on.
Apple's UI innovation patents, as far as it seems to me (a non-lawyer), are mostly about doing something that hasn't been done before and trying to patent as much of it as possible. Some of these patents are bogus (IMHO the pinch-zoom gesture is an obvious thing to do if you have a multitouch display, so shouldn't be patentable) but some of these might not be bogus.
On the other hand, the Java patents were really weak. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) was hardly the first VM ever; the UCSD "p-System" VM is over three decades old, so Sun couldn't patent the basic idea of a VM to let programs run anywhere. So they patented a few aspects of Java, and then Oracle claimed in court that the Dalvik VM infringed those patents. But I've read several analyses of these patents, and they pretty much agreed that the patents were weak. It seems the court agreed.
Finally, why should Google pay Oracle? Google is using a different VM, all new and all original code. Google isn't using the Java trademark, and doesn't have any agreement with Oracle. As people have observed here on Slashdot: If you want to argue that Oracle "owns" Java so completely that nobody may copy it, then maybe the creators of the C programming language and the C standard library could collect staggering royalties from pretty much the whole world.
Google making Dalvik over the objections of Oracle is just like Dodge making a car over the objections of Ford. You can see why there might be objections, but society shouldn't interfere.
steveha
Re:Oracle (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone explain to me how the price for 98 percent of a Hawaiian island was only between 500 million and 700 million? I know next to nothing about real estate out there except that I know it's expensive as hell to own even a shack on a tiny plot of land. Is the particular island just not part of the "Hawaiian experience" us mainlanders are led to think about when we hear about that series of tropical islands?
Re:Weird ruling (Score:4, Interesting)
Code is math, in every and any way you can imagine. Everything that makes it LOOK like it isn't math is deliberate window dressing to allow non-mathematicians to do the math - but that's all it is, smoke and mirrors.
It's still really all just math. The act of programming is really just a more efficient way of counting to a number that suits your purposes.
If you know anything about computational theory you would realize that there isn't a single aspect of programming that is NOT in fact 100% pure maths.
The patent system is perfectly equipped to deal with things that are maths: it must exclude them from patent-ability.
Problem solved.
Re:Weird ruling (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see why not. In very basic terms, a contract has three components:
Offer (I offer to let you use this software I wrote)
Consideration (in exchange for which you will do something eg. Give me money, agree not to copy it and give copies away, agree that if you change the source you must also give the source away)
Acceptance (you agree to these terms)
I'm pretty sure acceptance can be inferred from action; it does not require signing a piece of paper. The only difficulty I see is that the contract isn't revealed until after you buy the item, which generally you can't return. I don't know how this would pan out in the real world.
Usual IANAL caveats apply.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Weird ruling (Score:3, Interesting)
Pinch-to-Zoom was invented at a public university on public funding [examiner.com] and therefore it ought to belong to The People.