Judge Orders Oracle and Google To Talk, Again 89
Reader Fluffeh snips from and links to Ars Technica with the latest chapter in the ongoing Google vs. Oracle fight involving patents, Java, and Android, writing that executives at both companies were "'ordered to hold one last round of settlement talks no later than April 9th, with the trial over Google's alleged use of Java technology in Android set to begin April 16,' though '[t]he last-ditch effort to avoid a trial seems unlikely to succeed. ... Oracle initially accused Google of violating seven patents, but has since dropped most of them. This is due to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruling the patents described technology that was not patentable. Two patents assigned to the Oracle-owned Sun Microsystems remain: #6,061,520 which covers "an improvement over conventional systems for initializing static arrays by reducing the amount of code executed by the virtual machine to statically initialize an array," and #RE38,104 which covers a type of compiler and interpreter."
Re:When will patent thuggery end? (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on the company.
Some companies just want royalties paid on their patent (e.g. the MPEG patents)
Other companies want royalties plus limits on behavior (e.g. Microsoft v Android where Microsoft is rumored to be telling Android vendors what they aren't allowed to do if they want to use Microsoft patents)
Some companies want the infringing product gone completly (Apple v Samsung) and wont even consider licensing.
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
People misunderstand how prior art works in patent law. Patent law allows for patententing improvements over an existing method, regardless of weather the original method is patended or not (providing, of course that if patented, you have a license). People also forget that while being inventive necessitates being innovative, the inverse is not true, they are no synomyms.
It's the whole point of the patent system, Sun came upon an existing method, and figured out (read: innovated) a better way to do it, and that's entirely legit. Prior art is not some kind of magical silver patent invalidating bullet.
It irks me amost as much as people who don't differentiate between trademark law with patent law, you get to choose who is and is not allowed to use your patent and under what terms, it's not like trademark law where you have to sue everyone to keep it.
"derp derp why don't they sue x and y over z? lol *smug*" because they get to choose who they sue and who they don't.