Google Says 3rd Parties Would Be Liable For Java Infringement

angry tapir writes "Third parties, not Google, would be liable for any Java copyright violations in the Android mobile OS, according to a filing Google made in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Oracle sued Google in August over a number of alleged Java patent and copyright violations in Android."

Comments

But outside the US?

[MichaelSmith]

I wonder how Oracle will go suing Android integrators in Korea, Taiwan and China?

Re:But outside the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

Injunction against imports? Kind of like what they did when those LCD manufacturers in a certain Asian country got into trouble?

Re:But outside the US?

[williamhb]

I wonder how Oracle will go suing Android integrators in Korea, Taiwan and China?

This filing doesn't mean that even Google think the defence will succeed.

From the article:
Overall, Google's answer takes an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach, including seemingly contradictory defenses, such as that Android developers are in fact "licensed to use the Patents-in-Suit and the copyrights in the works that are the subject of the Asserted Copyrights."

Sounds a little like "Uh oh! Quick! Everyone think up some kind of a defence for this! Maybe if we have enough, they'll negotiate and settle on one of them!". Surely Google would not normally like to put up a big neon sign saying "WARNING: Use Android and you may be sued!" by making public claims that their customers should be liable in a lawsuit.

Re:But outside the US?

[TheRaven64]

Not quite. You have to enter evidence into the record during the discovery process - you can't jut pull out a new piece of evidence that proves you not guilty at the last second (unless you can convince the judge that you only just acquired it or there are some other extenuating circumstances). You don't have to provide your entire defence strategy up front. And, as the other poster said, you can enter contradictory defences.

Not quite what Google says

[Albanach]

From TFA, Google filed 20 defenses taking an 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach. In other words, they listed every defense they could conceive of, so that Oracle has to defeat each individual defense. If one fails, Google will then rely upon the others.

Furthermore, it's a strategic move - if the others were responsible, Oracle could find itself in the position of trying to sue either companies with much smaller bank balances like the Open handset Alliance or some 20 year old student. That's a lot less attractive than a bumper payday from Google.

We need a flow chart of sorts

[bogaboga]

Having a flow chart would clear up so many issues surrounding patents. Here is the question:

What line of reasoning must hold water before a patent is deemed valid?

If you read this story, you realize that each party is asserting their position as the valid one. To me, the confusion surrounding this topic is hitting me hard. A flow chart would help out a lot.

PolicyNodeImpl.java is from the Android TEST tree

[rossjudson]

It's been widely reported that there's a duplicated file, and indeed it there is something close to that. BUT! One thing you'll find missing in Oracle's Exhibit "J" are the package headers at the top of the file. There's a good reason for that. On the Android side the file is in package org.apache.harmony.security.tests.support.cert, in directory support/src/test/java. You can see this in the git repository for android. It's sitting in a directory of test support classes.

So the matching file that we have here is part of the test suite to ensure compliance with the interfaces. It is NOT part of the implementation itself. So the real question is, is it OK to have this kind of file sitting in the test branch, to ensure that the real implementation of it complies?

The fact that the package headers have been removed and that this file is from the test suite can't be anything other than a deliberate attempt to deceive, well, someone. ;)

It's rather unbelievable that with thousands of stories out there on this file nobody is talking about WHERE it fits into the android tree.

Re:The summary is a bit short.

[markjhood2003]

I believe this sentence is a reference to the Java TCK conformance test suites. Java is supposed to be open source, but you can't claim to have a conforming Java implementation unless you pass the various TCKs. But the TCKs themselves are not open source and you have to pay for a license to use it on your Java implementation. This has always been Sun's (and now Oracle's) big stick.

Re:This is the direct opposite of what MS is doing

[larry bagina]

Ahem,

Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.

That doesn't do jack shit if you (google) distribute code that infringes on third party (oracle) patents.

Re:nice

[postbigbang]

Perhaps you mean SAP.

If Oracle goes after users, they're making 200,000 enemies a day.

Uh, sorry about your phone, dude, but Oracle says you can't use that Android stuff. I think they have their own version, but you have to get it at the Oracle App Store. Have a nice day. Oh, and there's this URL where you can jailbreak your Unbreakable Oracle Phone....

To refine your analogy

[IBitOBear]

Microsoft could indeed (re)sell you a copy of OSX if they possessed one...

It's like Microsoft demanding you pay Microsoft a license fee for OSX in order for you to buy Windows, but in return for that license fee for OSX you get... nothing... Well you get a paper from Microsoft that says that as far as they are concerned it's okay if you get OSX by some other means and then use it. But since Microsoft doesn't have any stake in OSX that paper doesn't actually mean anything.

Now if you replace the copyright/patent (improperly "intellectual property") bits of the claim with the word/idea "Safety" the nature of this as a "protection racket" becomes clear.

You pay Oracle some money to protect you from any claims Oracle might make against you for things Oracle doesn't own...

You pay (entity) some money for protect you from any (action) (entity) might take against you for things (entity) doesn't otherwise have any right to influence (like your kneecaps or your store-front downtown).

[See "The SCO Group".]

copyrights protect expressions

[jjohn_h]

>>> But you compile both on a 32-bit platform, then decompile them both, and then say look, that second guy just stole the first guy's code. >>>

Copyrights protect expressions. You have two functions clearly different as they are expressed but after compilation they look the same. So what?

Re:nice

[terjeber]

Oracle has no choice, and the "bad guy" in this situation is Google. Google (or the OHA if you want to nit-pick) is destroying Java in exactly the same way that Microsoft tried to destroy Java. If Oracle wants Java to survive as a viable multi-platform development environment they need to kill Dalvik. Simple as that.

It is funny how, when Microsoft did this, the "community" turned against Microsoft, but when God^H^H^HGoogle does exactly the same thing then it is OK.