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Did Google Knowingly Violate Java Patents?
jfruhlinger writes "Opponents of software patenting have been rather heartened by recent developments in the Oracle-Google lawsuit, which have seemed to indicate that Oracle's patent case is weakening. But now the judge in the case has some sharp questions for Google, given that Google tried to negotiate with Sun over the patents in question before going on to develop Android without them."
may have been a simple "we see you have patented xyz, would you consider our doing abc a violation, and if so, what's licensing going to cost?"
answer may have been along the lines of "pretty much anything you do we may try to sue you for, so you'd be better off paying us a ton of money upfront now". "OK, no thanks, we'll take our chances in court."
Or it may have been something completely different. But that's just my guess.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Is that, given that patents are uh subjective, AND that Sun was quite a nice company to open source stuff (that's the impression I have), I think Google said:
"Hmm, if we do X, we might hit on a patent and get a lawsuit, lets see if we can clear it off with Sun, since they're reasonable".
Then when Oracle bought Sun, pretty more for the patents, they decided to take a risk.
That's my opinion on this matter. I don't know anything internally.
"Oracle v. Google - Google Moves to Supplement Its Invalidity Defenses"
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110712074100640
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
If I'm an inventor why should I have to build a factory? Not everyone wants to be an end-to-end mega-corporation. Maybe even a mega-corporation invests a lot of time and money into something and discovers it's not a product they want to sell but is still valuable and could be offered by someone else?
I have an application that I wrote that we aren't using at the company any more. That doesn't mean I can just take that application and start selling it. My employer spent a lot of money on development. We have no interest in commercializing it since we aren't a software company. But if someone wanted to license it and support/resell it we would be happy to profit from it.
If I were to write a book the person who prints the book should have to pay me for the IP. The writing is what has value. A book printed full of jibberish is mostly useless. The "R&D" that went into writing the manuscript is what is valuable.
Call me a dreamer, but instead of Did Google Knowingly Violate Java Patents? question, wouldn't it sound better better the Did Google know that SUN's patents were invalid and thus there was nothing to violate or pay for? or even Did Google know software patents are invalid?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
its a legitimate question.
think about the last time you saw robmalda.
now think about the last time someone got murdered with an axe.
coincidence?
you see, it all goes back to Woodrow Wilson...
because more likely than not, some of your code violates someones patents, and they could sue your company.
you thought that R&D was a positive, but now you could go bankrupt!
better to not invent anything at all.
yay capitalism.
Well, shit, who needs a court system when "Barbara, not Barbie" of Slashdot has dismissed the case?
Except for the fact that software patents are so vague that it is impossible to tell what violates patents and what doesn't. Until we finally decide to abolish patents, no one can ever know for sure if something will be in violation of a patent or not.
Most likely Google asked Sun how much money it would cost to license the patent for X because Google had no possible way of knowing if something would violate that patent or not, obviously the price of "protection money" on something that may or may not be covered under the patent was too high so they decided to take their risks in court.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
As sound as legal analysis from an anonymous poster on pro-Google Slashdot must be, I'm afraid you're not as persuasive as you think you are. What's happening is that the judge is pressuring both parties to reach a settlement, which is probably what's going to happen.
So with no intention of making money from it yourself, if others use it as core technology to an item they sell, you should reap rewards?
Sure, why not?
If only the inventor of plastic patented that idea.
He did.
Though you do have a point here in that many patents today (esp. software ones) are overly broad. With plastics, what's patented is the particular compound, not the general idea of polymerization. In case of Oracle, they patented some very generic VM implementation techniques. That they shouldn't be able to do so is a reasonable argument to make.
Does this mean every peice of Java software written should owe Oracle money?
No, since the language itself isn't patented. Most high-performance Java VMs, however, likely violate some of their patents.
Whatever happened to the idea of 'for the beneift of society'.
For the benefit of society, patents expire after 20 years, from which point on the invention is in the public domain. Since patent application is necessarily public, the process guarantees that invention will be available to all after expiration - the author could not conceal it. That is, indeed, the main point of patents - they're designed to make trade secrets redundant in many cases.
I agree with the ideal that if you create something (IP) you should be credited for it. However IMO I feel greater pride just knowing that something I've created is being used freely by the masses. If I had no real source of income I'd probably want some kind of $$$ for 'helping out', but otherwise i wouldn't care. In this case, given Oracles already large revenue and profit, this is pointless profiterring.
Are you, basically, saying that the rich should give out stuff for free, since selling it would be "profiteering" as they already "have enough"?
because more likely than not, some of your code violates someones patents, and they could sue your company.
its true; and as time goes on, it gets truer, still.
I've heard this said (forgot who said it, but he was a smart man) that a real reason why companies don't opensource things like drivers is because it only makes it easier for other trolls to look at their code and find, via coincidence or not, come patent violation.
so companies are *motivated* to not release source since it does give them protection.
in fact, it gives you and I protection, too.
think about the self-conflict in that! you want to release source but you dont' want to open yourself up to patent trolls.
lose/lose
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Nobody sells a high tech product without knowing that it infringes on some patent you don't own or have license to!!!
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY that ships a smart phone today, KNOWS that they are infringing on a patent held by someone else!
There are over 50 companies that hold at least 300 patents each covering smart phone technology. Who knows how many companies hold patents over various manufacturing technologies used. There are thousands of patents out there on many very basic software techniques. IBM, Motorola, HP, Intel, Apple, HTC, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, all hold thousands of patents that more or less apply to Smart phones and computers. And there are tons more. These are the guys that produce products. Many, many patents are held by trolls that produce nothing but lawsuits.
How then can any company hope to build a product that is free and clear of patents?
If knowing you might have patent issues means something significant, then ban all high tech products! Including frankly most medicines. Including every modern car. Including every T.V. Including ever significant piece of software!
In light of this rather obvious fact, what is the point this Judge is trying to make? How is any product any different?
You decide!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
that when a prostitute is murdered, someone has to have been the murderer.
critics point out that sometimes people are murdered without anyone actually murdering them.
(i.e. my elaboration is that headlines and news stories can be really, really wrong)
But it also runs anything else that targets the JVM, so it also runs JRuby, Mirah, Scala, Jython, etc.
This is pretty generally know if you've been following Java, but since you ask:
The Java Runtime license states:
"Software embedded in or bundled with industrial control systems, wireless mobile telephones, wireless handheld devices, kiosks, TV/STB, Blu-ray Disc devices, telematics and network control switching equipment, printers and storage management systems, and other related systems are excluded from this definition and not licensed under this Agreement."
As for the open source release, that's covered under the Java Language Spec patent grant.
That only covers fully-conforming versions, not sub or supersets.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Java_and_patents
It was Sun's intention to give Java away on the desktop, and charge for embedded use.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
When someone is as consistently wrong as Florian, or *World.com, then it's less effort to just ignore everything they say, rather than check everything and find the small percentage of times when they happen to be coincidentally right. Magic 8 Ball is more accurate than these sources.
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