Sun CEO Explicitly Endorsed Java's Use In Android

Posted by timothy on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:36PM from the maybe-he-was-in-on-the-plot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet writes: 'If you believe Oracle's patent lawsuits against Google for its use of Java in Android, Google has stolen not just patented ideas but directly copied Java code. In short, Google is a red-handed thief and should pay Oracle over a billion in damages. There's just one little problem with this portrayal of Google as an intellectual property (IP) bandit. When Android first came out, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, then Java's owner, greeted the news with 'heartfelt congratulations.' Whoops.'"

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Re:Won't stop Oracle by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-25 23:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is probably some argument, however tenuous, that merely having Sun's CEO publicly praise the use of basically-java in Android didn't actually constitute implicit permission to use whatever java-related patented techniques are at question.

Even if that side of things pans out, though, it certainly makes it a bit harder to make the argument that Google was willfully infringing(which would potentially up the damages significantly), since that isn't exactly the sound of a CEO who is getting willfully-infringed upon...