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Dispute Damages Would Exceed Android Revenues
CWmike writes "A new document in a year-old patent lawsuit filed by Oracle against Google over Android intellectual property suggests Oracle could be seeking huge damages from Google. The damages owed to Oracle, if granted by federal Judge William Alsup for the US District Court for Northern California, would 'far exceed any money Google has ever earned with Android' and could lead to a rewrite of Android's Dalvik virtual machine, considered integral to Android and used by Android device manufacturers and potentially thousands of Android app developers, wrote one blogger, Florian Mueller, who writes about intellectual property issues involving the software industry."
Florian is not a blogger, he is a professional troll.
Kind of makes me wonder why Google didn't buy Sun.
Better known as 318230.
Sheesh!
Google isn't trying to make money from it, rather they're attempting to drive people to their other services, such as search, that make money. This is the reason why you can't remove some apps from an Android.
For a countervailing opinion, see www.groklaw.net. The newest article was written by guest writer, Pamela Jones.
~Loyal
I thought the google code was based on harmony, a clean room implementation. If so, I don't see where Oracle has a leg to stand on. Of course, I could be wrong.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Can someone explain how a rewrite of the Dalvik VM would help with this lawsuit? From what I understand:
A. Dalvik is a clean-room implementation of a "Java-esque" virtual machine
B. The lawsuit is about patents, not copyright, so the exact code implementation doesn't matter, just the general form of the solution
C. Many (most?) of the patents in question are deeply imbedded in the idea of a virtual machine--to the point that I can't see a way around them.
All of these things add up to a rewrite being a pointless waste of time--even if Dalvik was rewritten from the ground up, you would have a very hard time fixing all of the patent issues. Determining whether the methods are justifiably patentable (I know /. hates software patents, and I agree, but they do exist legally at the moment, so get past that please) seems to be much more important to Google's case than getting rid of the patents. IANAL, however, so I could be misunderstanding the basis for the case.
Any thoughts?
Florian Mueller blog is a fake. Some call this astroturfing. All he does is spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about Android (Linux). His blog was setup for journalists to point to because journalists have to point to other sources of information for their articles. And it seems to be working because I have seen CNN and other news outlets point to it. Shame on you CNN.
Only guessing here, but Florian seems to be paid by Microsoft somehow to say these things. He even has written against IBM for the sake of Microsoft crushing IBM's mainframe business.
His blog is misnamed - it should read what his intentions are - Anti-FOSS Blog.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How do they use keyboards given the size of their fingers?
Many different fictional species have been called "trolls". In order to look up the anatomy of the trolls in a given fictional universe, it helps to know the author. Besides, how does an adult human use the keyboard on a PDA or smartphone?
Also internet access must be difficult under a bridge?
Not with a MiFi or other mobile broadband device.
You mention a Professional Troll?
The profession of such a troll could be to collect advertising revenue.
FM is to Oracle as Rob Enderle is to SCO, a pathetic sellout to *anyone* that will give him money. He's nothing but a cocaine slut.
Can we have a "florian mueller" tag, and something to filter out articles tagged "florian mueller"?
No, wait, I meant "avoid Java like the plague." My bad. Instead we're looking into more open solutions, like .Net.
(Just kidding. But seriously, we're looking into replacing Java with Python and Ruby on Rails as appropriate. Yes, we have client Java apps. Bleck.)
RIAA sues someone for downloading a few songs. Where is the revenue from that.
It seems real/imaginary damages are more important that revenues.
Wow, I hadn't thought of him, but you're right, he passed on.
(Age 62 to some bacterial infection.)
It's the ever eternal push between revenue and purity.
Really though, Florian Mueller and Galen Grumen have signed some nice deals that keep getting limelight.
Slashdot is posting articles lately that force the commenters to fix the damn articles. That's starting to grate on me.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So many story summaries now are oversensalized, with many stories that are more like advertisements.
It seems it's all about page hits and controversy.
"News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" is long gone.
Too often the *Editors* can't be bothered to even edit or check stories before posting them.
As good as it gets? Please. Slashdot hasn't been as good as it gets all this century. Honestly, I switched to Digg years ago. Even when it started becoming 'cool' and 'mainstream' and filled with idiots, it still offered more interesting news, much fresher, and with better discussions than Slashdot.
Then v4 came, and pretty much even those of us too lazy to abandon ship found ourselves on life rafts.
Could suggest maybe Reddit - that's where a lot of people, both former Slashdotters and Diggers - have ended, but the site looks like designed-by-an-engineer crap.
Such is the way of things, though. The fields are sown; crops grow; are harvested, and then covered with the desolation of winter. Buildings are constructed, only to crumble. Empires rise and fall.
As for me, I'll continue to float in my rubber life raft; trolling where the currents take me.
So if Oracle wins, they could get a large amount of money from Google, and Google would be forced to rewrite the VM to be non-infringing.
This all has been true for a few months now. What's the news, exactly?
Once Sony's thoroughly humiliated, Oracle would make a nice target for LulzSec.
Very few people who actually accomplishes things strive for purity. Those who do inevitably compromise somewhere to achieve it, then gloss over the compromises. Only in the mind of the idealist is it even possible.
Greed from both sides, however in part I will support Google's fight to continue with Andriod on the basis that I strongly feel, as a developer, that 'reusing' code (at least fragments of) is not at all like physically stealing a patented invention or part of. If I personally write a few lines of code to perform a task (a common task with a logical solution) then should I be surprised if someone else produces code to perform the same task in exactly the same, or extremely similar, way?
Also I cannot support Oracle's stance that it is entitled to monies (50% or greater) from the creation of a successful product, simply because they bought a company that produced a small portion of a contributing item of the product. They did not create, promote, or sell the product themselves, and therefore should not be entitled to anywhere 50% of any revenue gained. Damages are also hearsay as they most likely wouldn't have developed a product like this themselves anyway.
Wont what EXACTLY is infringing come to light during the trial? And couldnt the community be able to have non infringing code written before a decision is even handed down?
Known troll who couldn't get laid in a convention of hookers with a $100 bill stuck in his mouth.....consider the source and remember this is the same guy^H^H^Hidiot that blogged about SCO
Oracle is really clear on its java lic. Anyone can write java but not everyone can write a JVM. Dalveck is just that. so it infringes. I can't see why the argument would last more than a minute.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well if we are adding to the list of trolls we shouldn't have linked to /. for ANY reason, can I add a couple? If I never see another "article" by Steven J Nichols and Paul Thurott I would be quite happy, thanks ever so. Nichols and Thurott are two sides of the same coin, Nichols the "Will (insert topic of the day) (kill/crush/destroy) (Linux/FOSS/The GPL)?" and Thurott is such a shill he actually had the brass troll balls to say Vista was great, stable AND low resource. Right Paul, because i forgot what fun it was to have to reboot a dozen times a day because the &*&^$^$ OS keeps forgetting how to access shared folders. I also loved the "feature" where I couldn't download while listening to music without everything slowing to a crawl. that was nice.
So while Florian is a pretty irritating little shit (and no I won't RTFA since his name is on it, I'm sure its his usual troll bait trying to get page views) frankly he is little league compared to pro trolls like Thurott and Nichols. Hell I would rather sit down to one of Twitter's rants on how it is all a MSFT conspiracy, at least THOSE were entertaining and unpredictable, he had a knack for going six degrees and being able to blame ANYTHING on MSFT. Thurott, Nichols, and Florian are just the same tired old shilling and baiting for page views, same shit different day. Yawn.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yeah!
I suggest that geeks world wide place a special logo with the words "End Overly-Broad Patents" on every website or mobile service one has any legal control over, such as personal blogs, non-profit wiki's etc. Time to stand up to nonsense; it's keeping us in the dark ages.
Table-ized A.I.
It is beyonf me how anything regarding a bytecode interpreter can be patented. After all this is 40 years old technology ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There is the TechRights blog. It's more a blog, though, and has a weaker discussion mechanism than Slashdot.
My userContent.css just got a new entry.
a[href*="fosspatents.blogspot.com"]:after { content: " [TROLL WARNING]"!important ; color: red }
attack Sony but not someone as devoid of humanity as Larry Ellison. Talk about screwed up priorities.
The same old nonsense as usual. Clearly, one chap who doesn't care about his reputation.
Florian Müller is an idiot who can't even spell his own name correctly. When I asked him why he misspelled it his response was "that's the way the Americans spelled it on my Visa".
I'm proud of my name. If a bunch of stupid Yanks misspelled my name because their computer system couldn't handle my languages coding, I wouldn't change the spelling of my name. He did. He now uses Mueller. I ended up taking a couple of shots at him myself, then stopped, because it wasn't fair shooting at an unarmed man. But hey, if he wants to continue to be a nuisance, I might as well dredge them up.
Does Florian Müller Work For The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?
The Provenance of Florian Müller – Updated
The Provenance of Florian Müller – Part 2
The Android Header File Controversy Or ‘The Sky Is Falling By Florian’
Who Is Pamela Jones?
Proposal For An Expedition To HD 38283 b To Be Funded By The Gates Foundation – UPDATED
The last one is of course humor. Enjoy.
Wayne aka The Mad Hatter
"I guess you heard that Florian Mueller is at it again. He made strong claims of a smoking gun regarding alleged copyright infringement of Oracle files by Google. Well, in the cold light of day, some of the media who printed it without fact checking are now awakening to the news that the news wasn't as reliable or unchallengeable as they assumed". link
"The actual damages Oracle is demanding are unclear, since many portions of the latest five-page document are blacked out of view in the publicly available version filed Monday in federal court".
"After years of pretending to be a friend of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), IBM now shows its true colors. IBM breaks the number one taboo of the FOSS community and shamelessly uses its patents against a well-respected FOSS project, the Hercules mainframe emulator", Florian Mueller
"IBM has no intention of asserting its patent portfolio against the Linux kernel, unless of course we are forced to defend ourselves", IBM
The only way you get to legally use that independent invention is to either
(a) invalidate my patent or
(b) get a license from me.
or :
(c) be based in a country that doen't recognise software patent (like some EU countries or like Russia, etc.)
See the whole "Skype/Microsoft" vs. "russian reverse-engineers" currently happening.
Sadly, Google is based in the US. And HTC, Motoral and all the others sell their phones there.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And if the patent covers an algorithm, you can also have :
D. develop a completely different invention, which does something much more generic, of which the patent algorithm is a variation or subset.
Examples :
- Marching cubes is patented (turn a 3D matrix of values into a surface)
- Marching tetrahedrons is not (and is even simpler thank to smaller number of possible outcomes)
Any polyhedron (including cubes) could be decomposed into tetrahedrons.
Example:
- Arithmetic Coding is (was ?) patented
- Range Coding is not. (And arithmetic Coding looks like a specific case of range coding, where the Range is selected to be [0;1])
This approach can be also used to swap out patented bit from a whole technology :
h.264 vs. WebM (which is supposed to look like "h264 with the patented parts replaced).
Alternative if D is
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]