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Oracle Ordered To Lower Damages Claim On Google

Posted by timothy on from the that's-why-they-overreach-to-start dept.

CWmike writes "Oracle has been ordered to lower its multibillion-dollar claim for damages in its patent infringement lawsuit against Google and its Android operating system, court papers show. Oracle's expert 'overreached' in concluding that Google owed up to $6.1 billion in damages for alleged infringement of Oracle's Java patents, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said Friday in a sternly written order. The 'starting point' for Oracle's damages claim should be $100 million, adjusted up and down for various factors, he said. At the same time, Google was wrong to assert that its advertising revenue is not related to the value of Android and should therefore not be a part of Oracle's damages, the judge wrote. He also warned Google, 'there is a substantial possibility that a permanent injunction will be granted' if it is found guilty of infringement."

6 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Language by Threni · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What are the chances that Google will:

    1) alter the way the Dalvik VM works such that the same source will execute differently, although producing the same results, so that app developers code continues to work, or

    2) launch a new language for developing Android apps, but with a conversion tool to take existing source and turn it into whatever the new language looks like (some other variant on c/java/whatever...lets face it they're all practically identical nowadays)?

  2. Sun by nicholas22 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And THAT is the answer to the question "why did Google not buy Sun". It is cheaper to just some nickels and dimes now. And I guess they didn't need Solaris.

    1. Re:Sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They just reduced the cost of a settlement. A permanent injunction is still pretty bad. If they though there was a threat or wanted to pay that much, they could have just taken sun offer at the time for a 100mil.

  3. Kill All Software Patents by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm ready to kill all software patents. Does Android compete with Oracle? (No, Oracle doesn't market phones or tablets and never will.) Does Android compete with Microsoft. (Not really.) Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.) Did anybody other than Google put in the effort to create Android and deserve the rewards for doing so? (No, they just want to collect money for doing nothing more than filing a patents that they don't even use in this market.)

    Who loses when all of these patents are enforced. (We, the public, do - Big Time!)

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  4. This cannot be good for Java... by mark-t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am inclined to think that if Oracle wins this, then there are going to be a lot of other places that are going to end being afraid of utilizing Java in the future... which could spell the effective end of Java as a mainstream programming language (although it obviously wouldn't die completely), which can't possibly be good for oracle.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  5. Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins by robertl234 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's where you are wrong. In a common law system, which US civil law is largely based on, law is created by the decisions of judges rather than the legislature.