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Judge Dismisses Google's Complaint Over Android Code Viewing

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-outta-here dept.

CWmike writes "A U.S. trade judge has rejected Google's move to block the testimony of a Microsoft expert witness in the dispute with Motorola over patents allegedly used by Android. Last week, Google accused Microsoft of violating a confidentiality agreement struck between Microsoft, Motorola and Google in the ITC case. The judge rejected Google's motion on Monday. 'The ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] finds no basis to discern from Google's statement whether Google made a reasonable, good-faith effort to resolve the matter with Microsoft,' he wrote in his ruling."

64 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Suing themselves by muffen · · Score: 1

    If google looses, they'd just be paying themselves. Only the lawyers will be winners in this case.... wonder if thats happened before.

    1. Re:Suing themselves by WindBourne · · Score: 2

      MS is suing Motorola, not Google suing Motorola.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    2. Re:Suing themselves by DJRumpy · · Score: 2

      Just in case anyone is curious and doesn't want to read TFA, the issue is that MS allowed an oust side consultant to view the source code provided my Motorola. Motorola's beef is that they had confidentiality agreements with MS. The judge stated that Google has no stake in the game and that Motorola would have to file a complaint.

      The gist of the article is that MS believes their consultant found some dirt on Android and it's code, which Google seems to think will be very damaging to it's (Motorola's) case, and as a result, all Android devices.

      Google's complaint centered around Stevenson, who Microsoft allowed to review Android source code. Google said it had not been told beforehand that Stevenson would see what it called "confidential" code so "highly proprietary...that Google does not even share with its partners, such as Motorola."

      In an interview last week, German patent activist and analyst Florian Mueller said that Google's attempt to block Stevenson was no more than a speed bump in the case, which he sees as potentially harmful to Android if Microsoft wins.

      "I think Google is extremely afraid of the outcome of this particular ITC investigation," said Mueller last week. "If this investigation finds Motorola and, in fact, all Android devices to infringe various valid Microsoft patents, all of Google's hardware partners will have to pay royalties to Microsoft."

      I can't help but feel Google has really blundered here. I don't know if its' simply because they never had such intense competition in markets they were in (primarily search/ad revenue) and just taken by surprise, or they just assumed they could make agreements with companies who are in it for the long haul and unwilling to bargain. They know they have Google over a barrel or at least think they do, and Google has nothing to bargain with. I think it was naive of Google to assume these handset vendors would descend themselves and still remain loyal to Android if things go badly.

    3. Re:Suing themselves by DJRumpy · · Score: 1

      Damn, hate it when I do that.
      "I think it was naive of Google to assume these handset vendors would defend themselves and still remain loyal to Android if things go badly."

    4. Re:Suing themselves by bonch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I thought it was funny that Google and Android are supposed to be so open, yet they were trying to suppress source code they considered "highly proprietary."

    5. Re:Suing themselves by mcvos · · Score: 1

      Exactly what I thought. Isn't it supposed to be open in the first place? What's the confidentiality agreement for?

    6. Re:Suing themselves by MiG33 · · Score: 2

      Same here when I read about this. I'm still also surprised slashdot crowd believes all the crap Google says, even when the truth has hit them in the face so many times lately and before.

      The truth is, almost all of Google's products are proprietary. Since they piggybacked on Linux kernel they had to open up Android some. Yet they still manage to withhold distributing said code for months at a time. A thing slashdot crowd would demand billions of damages to other companies for GPL violation. However, when it's Google it must be okay because they say they're not evil. Sigh.

    7. Re:Suing themselves by mcvos · · Score: 1

      I still generally like Google in most things (though I switched to DuckDuckGo for my main search engine), but their approach to open source is definitely questionable at times.

    8. Re:Suing themselves by jdfox · · Score: 1

      Just in case anyone is curious and doesn't want to read TFA, the issue is that MS allowed an oust side consultant to view the source code provided my Motorola.

      An "oust side" consultant: what an excellent egg corn! :-)

    9. Re:Suing themselves by DJRumpy · · Score: 1

      According to the article, the code in question wasn't even being supplied to handset vendors. In any case, this isn't a breach of contract of the person MS showed it to was also under a confidentiality agreement and currently employed by MS (Note: IANAL). It does seem odd though that the source is supposed to be open but they are stating it is proprietary info.

    10. Re:Suing themselves by GooberToo · · Score: 2

      Can you please be more specific? I constantly see people say the things you say and without fail, they always prove to be completely baseless. Must like what started this whole thread.

      To what violations do you refer?

    11. Re:Suing themselves by Big+Smirk · · Score: 2

      The gist of the article is that MS believes their consultant found some dirt on Android and it's code, which Google seems to think will be very damaging to it's (Motorola's) case, and as a result, all Android devices.

      You have to understand how lawsuits work. Team A says they want to get the defendant's middle name, Team B, although they don't see the harm, they move to block it because they will not give Team A a single sliver of evidence that isn't specifically needed.

      I was involved in a lawsuit where our lawyer actually blocked the subpoena of meeting minutes - which we had and which we believed supported our claim - because it wasn't necessary (you could just subpoena all the people that were there). Had me worried because the recollection of other people in the meeting seemed to be 'off' (against us). At trial, our lawyer the opposition's story went wild (the exaggerated, lied, made up things etc.) and our lawyer beat them up over it. "You were quoted saying this to the newspaper, you said this in your deposition, and now you say this at trial. Which version is the truth?"

      Bottom line, limit the other side's information, limit what they can present in court, and finally, limit the arguments they can make. Chess is a lot easier if you whittle it down to just a few pieces left on the board.

      --
      TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
  2. No standing? by wsxyz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What I get out of this is that the judge says that it's none of Google's business because the lawsuit is between Microsoft & Motorola.

    By the way, what is this ultra secret, mega proprietary Android source code anyway? I thought Android was open source. Didn't Andy Rubin define "open" as the ability to download and compile the source?

    1. Re:No standing? by chaboud · · Score: 1, Informative

      This could be, for instance, private keys for market signatures, etc. There are some bits that you show *nobody* if you want things to be even remotely secure.

      Microsoft did actually screw up on this one. There was a clear procedure for disclosure in this case. Google was supposed to have been notified in advance of the inclusion of a 3rd party and be given 10 days to object. That process was violated.

      Clearly, Google's lawyers don't play enough golf.

    2. Re:No standing? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 3, Funny

      By the way, what is this ultra secret, mega proprietary Android source code anyway? I thought Android was open source. Didn't Andy Rubin define "open" as the ability to download and compile the source?

      All the source is open but some is more open than others. Now let's all stop posing awkward questions and focus on how evil Apple and Facebook are, those damn liberal elites and lame-stream social media that hate us real internetians.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    3. Re:No standing? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 2

      Where can I download the source to Android 3, 3.1, or 3.2?

    4. Re:No standing? by Lifyre · · Score: 1

      It hasn't been finalized yet. Buying a company isn't like buying Twinkies or Cheetos, it can take months or even years to finalize a purchase.

      --
      I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
    5. Re:No standing? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 1

      This could be, for instance, private keys for market signatures, etc. There are some bits that you show *nobody* if you want things to be even remotely secure.

      Come on this isn't rainman, he's not going to memorize a private key. It's probably some secret sauce in the Google Android apps, which aren't open source.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    6. Re:No standing? by geekoid · · Score: 2

      Microsoft, apparently.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:No standing? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >> All the source is open but some is more open than others.

      Please go on. Don't be shy. And if you can't provide the evidence, please just shut the fuck up with your Apple whoring.

      "Over the past few months, according to several people familiar with the matter, Google has been demanding that Android licensees abide by "non-fragmentation clauses" that give Google the final say on how they can tweak the Android code—to make new interfaces and add services—and in some cases whom they can partner with."

      Or I could have just said: Honeycomb. "Open" indeed.

      BTW, they have pills for Tourette's now.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    8. Re:No standing? by rk · · Score: 2

      You've obviously never been confronted with the vast array of Cheetos now available on the market. I'm still waiting on the final results from my research team before I can make a decision between the Cheetos Fantastix Chili Cheese Flavored and the Crunchy Flamin' Hot Limon Cheese varieties.

    9. Re:No standing? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 2

      Or you can say that anybody can take the code, fork it and do whatever they want.

      Or...

      "mkdir android ;cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ;repo sync ;make"

      Now weep.

    10. Re:No standing? by sexconker · · Score: 1

      It hasn't been finalized yet. Buying a company isn't like buying Twinkies or Cheetos, it can take months or even years to finalize a purchase.

      It can take months or even years to "finalize a purchase" of Twinkies or Cheetos, too.
      If you know what I mean.
      (I'm talking about poop.)

    11. Re:No standing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I tried that. Now, where's Maps and all the rest that's supposed to be part of "The Android Experience?" And where do I install the binary?

      But what I really would like to know: what's with all the complile time errors?

      Boo-hoo.

    12. Re:No standing? by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      What you said.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    13. Re:No standing? by Lifyre · · Score: 1

      At least Twinkies are still dependable...

      --
      I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
    14. Re:No standing? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      I think maybe we have different ideas of "open."

      "Here's the source, have fun looking, but here's what you're not allowed to do with it" isn't.

      So "more heavily policed" == less open. Thus the OPs point: some parts of Android are more open than others.

    15. Re:No standing? by wsxyz · · Score: 1

      That's exactly the point. If that's how open Android is, what could be so sooper secret about the code that Google didn't want anyone to see?

    16. Re:No standing? by craigc05 · · Score: 1

      You're thinking "free", Microsoft and Apple both have "open" licenses.

    17. Re:No standing? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      And Google too, apparently.

    18. Re:No standing? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Funny

      Come on this isn't rainman, he's not going to memorize a private key.

      Protip: Ctrl c, Ctrl v.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    19. Re:No standing? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

      That's just the GPL'd kernel source - in other words, barely-modified Linux kernel. Real useful.

    20. Re:No standing? by bonch · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you not been following Android news in the last few months? Google withholds Android source from non-privileged partners, and they use compatibility clauses to control how vendors use Android. There have even been accusations from vendors that they throw out artificial obstacles for phones that use competing services like Bing. A Google email said they "use compatibility as a club to make [vendors] do what we want."

    21. Re:No standing? by bonch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What do you do when Google withholds the source for months like they did with Honeycomb? Add a sleep command in there?

    22. Re:No standing? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      Didn't Andy Rubin define "open" as the ability to download and compile the source?

      yeah he did. he just didn't define which source or from which machine! (surely he can just apt-get it himself, but not so true for the rest of us to the extend you might have thought from his definition).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    23. Re:No standing? by mcvos · · Score: 1

      Ctrl v does nothing...

      Ctr-V quotes the next character, which is useful if it's a special one. Try typing Ctrl-M, for example. Now try Ctrl-V Ctrl-M.

    24. Re:No standing? by crutchy · · Score: 2

      if it takes you months to "finalize" anything you eat you need to go see a quack... and you're full of shit (as it were)

    25. Re:No standing? by crutchy · · Score: 1

      Microsoft licenses open? WTF... yeah maybe an open can of worms (embrace, extend and extinguish). Apple? Never heard of it. Must be some kind of fruit company you're mixed up with.

    26. Re:No standing? by crutchy · · Score: 1

      i'm a biological system and i operate things like computers, so that must make me an "operating system"

    27. Re:No standing? by crutchy · · Score: 1

      "open source" doesn't necessarily mean "free". i'm sure if you paid microsoft enough money you could have access to Windows source code too. that's why the term "free and open source" was coined. there's also freedom and there's free beer. android source is apparently free as in free beer. just because you're not allowed to do anything with it (without google's permission) doesn't mean its not free. its just not free as in freedom.

    28. Re:No standing? by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      It actually is pretty useful - thanks to it, mine is running Ubuntu now.

      But I do agree that it's completely separate to the Android source.

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
    29. Re:No standing? by andydread · · Score: 2

      Have you not been following Android news in the last few months? Google withholds Android source from non-privileged partners, and they use compatibility clauses to control how vendors use Android. There have even been accusations from vendors that they throw out artificial obstacles for phones that use competing services like Bing. A Google email said they "use compatibility as a club to make [vendors] do what we want."

      [citation-needed]

    30. Re:No standing? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      At least per the GPL definition of source ASM may or may not be source just as C may or may not be source. What matters is not what language it is in but whether or not it is the "preffered form of the work for making modifications".

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    31. Re:No standing? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 1

      Hah, for some reason I envisaged them taking him into a room on the Google campus where he could browse the code on a workstation with no outside connection and a legal pad for taking notes. If they just sent him a tarball of the code why even include the secrets part Microsoft would have to ask permission to view ?

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    32. Re:No standing? by Yamioni · · Score: 1

      Not if you're in a post apocalyptic world with zombies running amok.

      God-Damn Sno Balls!

      --
      Cool post bro, highfive \o
    33. Re:No standing? by Yamioni · · Score: 1

      BTW, they have pills for Tourette's now.

      I've seen those! They're red, and round, and usually have a strap that goes around the back of your head.

      --
      Cool post bro, highfive \o
    34. Re:No standing? by Jonner · · Score: 1

      Where can I download the source to Android 3, 3.1, or 3.2?

      Indeed, the source they're referring to could be some that has not yet been released under a Free/Open Source license. If Google is the copyright holder, they have no legal obligation to release it though this is harmful to the Android community. However, it seems unlikely that unreleased code implements some patent, but the released code doesn't.

    35. Re:No standing? by SideshowBob · · Score: 1

      Then they should stop calling it open.

      Here is the source to most of OS X (including the most recent version which was released mere weeks ago:) http://www.opensource.apple.com/

      The AOSP is no more open than, and in some ways arguably more closed than Apple's OS, and yet Google is somehow the darling of the open source world.

  3. Case dismissed by perpenso · · Score: 1

    If google looses, they'd just be paying themselves. Only the lawyers will be winners in this case.... wonder if thats happened before.

    IIRC when a defendant buys the plaintiff the case is normally dismissed.

    1. Re:Case dismissed by bws111 · · Score: 1

      Maybe that is the case. However, the defendant is Motorola, and the plaintiff is Microsoft, so that does not apply.

  4. Re:10th story and counting by Idbar · · Score: 1

    Well, Google is all over the news, because EVERYONE is scared with their move. Note that even cable companies are intrigued about the move on the tv-boxes used by many companies. There's a lot going out with the move, so it seems reasonable hearing "bashing" and excitement depending their perspective.

  5. Just to get Technical by fortfive · · Score: 2

    The Judge *denied a motion,* not *dismissed a complaint.*

  6. Re:10th story and counting by symbolset · · Score: 1

    That word "evil". I don't think it means what you think it means. This is evil: Plamondon. Do you see the difference?

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  7. Re:10th story and counting by YetAnotherForumAcc · · Score: 1

    To me, evil = ethically questionable or worst.

    Google to me has crossed that line, at least their mobile division.

    "Feigning" friendship and "betraying"/turning on your partners definitely qualifies as "evil" in my book.

  8. Re:10th story and counting by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 1

    While the same partners welcomed the move? Wow....

    Let's also hear your thoughts on steve jobs stealing somebody's liver...

  9. Here's the secret, bro... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's about money, dude. MONEY.

  10. Re:10th story and counting by bonch · · Score: 2

    Didn't you get the memo? It's now popular to hate Google.

    People tend to hate closed-source, proprietary megacorporations that say one thing but do another.

  11. Re:10th story and counting by bonch · · Score: 1

    With the constant love that Google and its products get on Slashdot and have gotten for over 10 years, you're bothered by some negativity? Is Slashdot supposed to ignore judicial events like this because Google was on the losing side?

  12. Re:10th story and counting by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    What changed, you ask?

    Oh, I know the answer to this one! Their CEO made public statements against privacy, they collected huge amounts of data about everyone that make things like the proposed UK ID database look like children's toys, and they decided that copyright was something that only applied to other people.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  13. Re:10th story and counting by YetAnotherForumAcc · · Score: 1

    Really modded down because you disagree with me.

    Why do I bother anymore?

  14. Re:10th story and counting by YetAnotherForumAcc · · Score: 1

    That must be why Samsung is re-evaluating it's options.

    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE77G1HX20110817?irpc=932

    They would be fools to rely on Google now, Google would be directly competing with them.

    Google will always have the edge, being the makers of the OS, they control the features nd they have "first access".

  15. Any objections to this ruling by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    are to filed at the courthouse in Redmond, WA.

  16. Re:10th story and counting by andydread · · Score: 1

    You have any proof that the Ipad is an original idea because I have proof that its not. Who did Apple copy is the real question. So its ok for Apple to steal the idea from the originators of the idea? This hypocrisy from Apple followers is astounding. We know the real reason for all this recent Google hate. Anyone with a brain can see right through this charade. The massive amounts of negative comments started right around the time when Apple and Google parted ways. its obviously because the Apple fanatics along with paid astroturfers have started to attack Google, lobbing accusations that Google is copying Apple. The Apple fanatics and mad that Google has threatened Apple's stint at world domination.

    The notion that if somebody makes a box shape with 4 wheels and anyone else that does the same is copying is ludicrous. The same thing with sillyness applies to Apple and their followers. The notion that if you make a tablet that is rectangle with rounded corners and a bezel with an operating system is copying Apple is laughable if it wasn't so serious. What gets me is that the Apple fanatics would rather see a world where no one competes with Apple. They want to see a world without choice. Because Apple can do no wrong. If Apple copies other people's ideas then thats OK. Its getting a bit old. Your Dear Leader Steve Jobs does not walk on water. Get over it.

  17. Re:Ignorant judge? by chaboud · · Score: 1

    Hence the golf joke.

    I'm guessing his answer to Google's dumbfounded attorneys was likely "because fuck you. That's why..."

    Google may suffer from hiring attorneys with the same sort of beautifully hopeful world view that they have. That's probably a bad idea. Lawyers should be hopelessly corrupt bastards.

    They just need to be on *your* side...