Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents

Bruce Perens writes "Oracle has brought a lawsuit against Google claiming that Google has infringed patents on the Java platform in Android. Scribd has a copy of the complaint. But there's a patent grant that should allow Google to use Java royalty-free. Has Google failed to meet the terms of the grant?"

Comments

documenting it on http://en.swpat.org

[ciaran_o_riordan]

There's more info on en.swpat.org at:

• Oracle v. Google (2010, USA)

It's a publicly-editable wiki; feel free to help out.

• 6,125,447 - Protection Domains To Provide Security In A Computer System
• 6,192,476 - Controlling Access To A Resource
• 5,966,702 - Method And Apparatus For Preprocessing And Packaging Class Files
• 7,426,720 - System And Method For Dynamic Preloading Of Classes Through Memory Space Cloning Of A Master Runtime System Process
• RE38,104 - Method And Apparatus For Resolving Data References In Generate Code
  • (A reissued patent; the original number was 5,367,685)
• 6,910,205 - Interpreting Functions Utilizing A Hybrid Of Virtual And Native Machine Instructions
• 6,061,520 - Method And System for Performing Static Initialization

Re:documenting it on http://en.swpat.org

[TheRaven64]

First, you seem to think the Bilski ruling said a lot more than it did: it did not invalidate software patents and only some of the justices involved even cast any doubt on the idea that they should be valid.

The GPL is irrelevant in this case. Google's VM is not based on Sun's GPL'd code, it is an independent implementation (under a BSD-style license, as I recall). The GPL only protects derivatives of the GPL'd code from patent liability. It does not protect any other code.

Perens seems to be unable to read the text that he quoted in his blog too. The grant there only covers complete Java 2 SE implementations. Android is not a complete J2SE implementation. But, hey, he got it on Slashdot and got paid for the ad impressions down the side...

Re:documenting it on http://en.swpat.org

[think_nix]

and also because Java is licensed under the GPL.

"Java" isn't licensed under the GPL. A single Java implementation, derived from Sun's proprietary source code, is licensed under the GPL. Furthermore, the patent grant applies only if you meet specific compatibility conditions, which no implementation other than Sun's meets.

Google implemented the Java language, not its libraries, and did it by themselves. Android (and Dalvik) are licensed under a mix of Apache and GPL, but that doesn't matter; the license under which a third party implementation is released is not relevant for the patent grant.

Google rolled their own implementation and libraries for good reason: the full Java platform would have been far too obese for Android, and embedded versions of Java aren't free at all.

There is effectively only one Java implementation, the one controlled by Sun/Oracle. Sun killed most of the others early on with legal threats, and the few remaining ones seem to fail to meet the conditions of Sun's public patent grant.

Anybody who writes Java software is pretty much stuck with running it on Sun/Oracle's proprietary implementation or its nominally GPL derivative. You're joined at the hip with Oracle, in the bending over kind of sense.

Almost but not quite , check out this interesting read: http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/

So, Android uses the syntax of the Java platform (the Java “language”, if you wish, which is enough to make java programmers feel at home and IDEs to support the editing smoothly) and the java SE class library but not the Java bytecode or the Java virtual machine to execute it on the phone (and, note, Android’s implementation of the Java SE class library is, indeed, Apache Harmony’s!)

The trick is that Google doesn’t claim that Android is a Java platform, although it can run some programs written with the Java language and against some derived version of the Java class library. Sun could prevent this if they had a patent on the standard class library, but they don’t and, even if they did, I strongly doubt it would be enforceable since Android doesn’t claim to be compatible (and in fact, could very well claim that their subset/superset is an innovation on the existing patent and challenge Sun’s position).

Epic Fight on the way..

[tebee]

I wonder if this could be as big and as interesting(for the geek community) a fight as SCO v Novell

There's an interesting comment on James Gosling's blog http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/the_shit_finally_hits_the

"Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle"

And yet more money get syphoned out of the IT industry into the lawyers pockets. Sigh

Here's the lawsuit as a PDF

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> The text of their lawsuit isn't available

Yes it is. I put it here:

• 35811761-Oracle-s-complaint-against-Google-for-Java-patent-infringement.pdf

Other info:

• Phone patent litigation (this case is about Android)
• Oracle
• Google

Re:How ironic

[RivieraKid]

Actually, didn't Sun sue Microsoft for their usual Embrace, Extend, Extinguish tactics when they added proprietary extensions to their Java version and claimed it was still Java, thus violating Suns patents/trademarks/copyright/license terms/whatever?

They didn't sue just because MS created their own runtime/JVM, they sued because MS distributed an incomplete Java implementation, and then passed it off as the Java, something which only Sun had the legal right to do.