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Oracle's Android Claims Cut By 98%
tomhudson writes "Groklaw is reporting that Oracle was ordered to reduce its claims against Google from 132 to 3. In a further ruling, the judge has ordered that 129 of those claims will be permanently barred against all past and current products. Additionally, the judge has asked both sides if, in their opinion, after they have reduced the number of claims, a trial is still worth holding, or if the case is now moot."
Which bit don't you get? Oracle made 132 claims of infringement by Google on their patents. Those 132 claims involved only 7 patents (ie. many of the claims involved the same patents). Google responded by claiming the patents were invalid, citing hundreds of examples of prior art that meant the patents should not have been granted in the first place.
So, "132 claims from seven patents" just means that Oracle claimed that Android was infringing on an average of 18 claims per patents (...which were very probably very similar to each other, differing only in scope...)
Google tried to have these claims struck by pointing out prior art (implementations that would infringe, but were actually done prior to the patent, thus showing that the patent (... or rather: the relevant claims...) was not really novel...), and found hundreds of them.
Then the judge told both parties to "keep it simple" by only sticking to the most relevant claims and defences.
i call collusion. lawyers on both sides just wanted to get the judge to say "moot" cause it sounds funny. "Moot." hehehe. Try it. "Moot".
rewriting history since 2109
That russian doll is called 'matrushka'.
Even 1 could be enough for ruling to stop competitive company products being sold.
If companies would be smart and really being sure that other company is abusing their patent, then they would show just the ones what are needed.
Now they throw almost everything what they get even close to that case and judges and assistant specialists are bored to death. Companies believe that the amount of abusive accusitions means the judge (or jury) sees how bad the accused is and it can not be a false.
Nonono --- the end will be near when Slashdot's fortune generator gets un-stuck and shows something other than that annoying Matt Welsh quote. (And when I get some mod points.)
Telling Google they have to pick and choose what they can use to defend themselves isn't kosher.
Google don't need to defend themselves against the claims that have been thrown out.
This isn't about deciding who is right, at this stage, its about cutting the case down to something that can be heard, considered properly and decided before the heat death of the universe.
Also, its not the Judge's job to get as many patent claims overturned as possible, much as we'd like that to happen.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I thought it was just me stuck with that quote ..
You forgot that Duke Nukem is coming out this year in June.
In this regard, this year is no different from the 10 previous ones.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
It is not that 3 stuck: the judge has not decided which 3 claims stick. He has ordered both sides to reduce their claims and defences from the current huge number in three stages, to be down to 3/8 by the time the case comes to trial. The idea is that Oracle should pick their three strongest claims, and Google their eight best defences against those claims. This means that there is at least a chance that the jury will be able ti understand the case without their brains exploding,
If only this judge had been in charge of the cases in SCO vs The World, that nonsense would have been done in 2004. It's easy to see that this fellow has a clue here.
It was announced that groklaw will stop on may 16, What site will be the best followup?
Way off-topic here, but 'communism has never been practiced' is another way of saying that it doesn't work, since it has been attempted a lot of times. And it's not even true. Communism works quite well, the problem is that it doesn't scale. Once you get beyond about 50 people in your society, communism starts to develop serious issues.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Google don't need to defend themselves against the claims that have been thrown out.
The judge not only threw out claims, but also some of Google's prior art examples.
Currently, there are 132 claims from seven patents asserted in this action, and there are hundreds of prior art references in play for invalidity defenses. This is too much. The following schedule will ensure that only a triable number of these items — three claims and eight prior art references — are placed before the jury in October, all others to be forsaken.
Do you have any idea how long a trial would last with 132 claims and hundreds of prior art references to sort out?
Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Android
Anybody want my mod points?
Patents have the same problem. They may work well with single inventors inventing steam engines and telephones, but it doesn't scale well to multinational pharma and software companies.
Here's my understanding of the progression:
Near as I can see, this is a big win for Google - they've essentially won on 129 points by default, and can concentrate their resources on the remaining three.