Oracle's Java Claims Now Down To $230 Million

Poor Larry by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-21 03:51 · Score: 5, Funny

That won't even pay for the mooring fees, let alone an entire yacht!

Abuse of process by mehrotra.akash · 2012-02-21 03:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

the damages in play now are down to a little less than 4 percent of Oracle's original $6.1 billion claims."

At this point, they should just declare that Oracle abused the process and grant Google victory over the remaining patents as compensation/penalty

Re:Abuse of process by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-02-21 04:11 · Score: 5, Funny

Frankly, both Oracle and Google should just stop fighting immediately and dedicate their effort to reverse-engineering this judge's apparently superb garbage-collecting algorithms...
Re:Abuse of process by Gideon+Wells · 2012-02-21 04:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'll play the Devil's Advocate card here.
Oracle may have been overzealous by a far degree. The process this is taking is likely very stupid. Many have been thrown out. However, that doesn't mean the last few aren't legally sound under the current system/process. Maybe they aren't. The most obvious offenders were withdrawn. It is now time to test the sturdier ones to the law process.
Who knows, maybe Oracle will loose and set a useful precedent for the Googles?

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Re:Abuse of process by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-21 04:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Unfortunately I don't think "stating ridiculously huge amounts" has ever been a disqualifier in the US legal system...
Re:Abuse of process by mehrotra.akash · 2012-02-21 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

What I dont get is how come there isnt a penalty for pursuing a lawsuit where 96% of it is thrown out?
If Oracle had brought a similar lawsuit on a small firm instead of Google, they(the small firm) would have probably been shut down just because of the costs of the suit
Re:Abuse of process by ShanghaiBill · 2012-02-21 06:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

What I dont get is how come there isnt a penalty for pursuing a lawsuit where 96% of it is thrown out?
Are you serious? Who benefits from long drawn out frivolous lawsuits? Lawyers. Who controls the courts? Judges, who are lawyers. Who makes the laws? Politicians, who are 85% lawyers. There is no one in a position to fix the system who has any incentive to do so.

What about the apple patents? by backslashdot · 2012-02-21 04:00 · Score: 5, Informative

At least they aren't going the route of apple which last week, for example, patented an existing 3D eye tracking based icon display system of which there is a demo by someone else in youtube since 2009.

Would the patent office bother to find out? I dont think so.
Don't believe me, compare it yourself:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/02/apple-working-on-hot-3d-eye-tracking-interface-for-gaming-iphone.html

versus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SImOIMcMlk

If anyone has any connection to the US patent office they should be made aware.

Re:What about the apple patents? by Frosty+Piss · 2012-02-21 04:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

The patent office rubber stamps whatever comes in, and lets the courts sort it out.

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Re:What about the apple patents? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-02-21 04:23 · Score: 5, Funny

Apple's behavior is perfectly fair:

After the apotheosis of Jobs, the reality distortion field was so intensified that space and time itself operate differently within the confines of his mortuary temple. Anybody within the sanctum operates as an innovator-outside-of-time. They may appear to release specific developments at specific points in the pitifully linear 'history' experienced by the unenlightened; but they(how this works is a Holy Mystery; but it is so)are simultaneously are perpetually innovating beyond time, have already invented all technologies worth inventing, and will invent all technologies worth inventing.

Human history is, in fact, simply a mortal's-eye-view of the bestowal of gifts of innovation on various Chosen at various times. The patent office is simply recognizing this.
Re:What about the apple patents? by jmegapac · 2012-02-21 05:56 · Score: 2

On February 10, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a hot 3D eye-tracking based interface that will be used for gaming, digital photography and videography, biometrics and surveillance applications while being an OS feature option for iOS devices and Apple's iMac.
According to the article, it is a publication of a patent application (PGPUB). The actual publication number is US 2012/0036433 A1. It probably hasn't even been examined yet.
Please inform yourself of the basics of the US patent system before posting stuff like this.
Re:What about the apple patents? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-21 06:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, they in fact cover ideas. I don't care what the intent of the law is, the fact is that patents are written in impenetrably vague "patentese" that even trained lawyers can't decipher unless they specialize in the field. This, along with a "fence" of similar patents with the same degree of vagueness, allows one to interpret the language of one or more of these patents in pretty much any manifestation of the idea or even anything vaguely similar to the idea. That is, of course, assuming one has the money to leverage the system like this. Far as the big players and patent mills are concerned, that's a feature, not a bug.

That's the way it's done by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-02-21 04:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

That's the way lawyers and lawsuits work, especially in the Fantasyland of "Intellectual Property" law -- throw anything and everything at the wall, see what sticks. Rinse, repeat.

Business Model by EliSowash · 2012-02-21 04:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Is it just me, or have lawsuits become a core business model of technology megacorps?

Re:who cares by Short+Circuit · 2012-02-21 04:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

who cares

If Oracle wins, they'll still have a victory under their belt which they could pursue manufacturers of Android devices?

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End the capture by tepples · 2012-02-21 04:10 · Score: 2

Lawsuits will always be a business model wherever the law provides a cause of action. To take the legal system out of the equation, you have to remove the cause of action. Legislators create causes of action, and U.S. legislators have been captured by rent-seeking monopolists. The only way I can see to clean this up is to end the capture.

Re:The problem with outlanding numbers by phrostie · 2012-02-21 04:10 · Score: 2

but, "Billions and Billions" does have a nice ring to it.

"Millions and Millions", not bad, but it's just not the same.

Re:The problem with outlanding numbers by Sique · 2012-02-21 04:13 · Score: 5, Informative

In legislations, where it is "loser pays", this first reference point is important for the later outcome. Google was sued for 6.1bn, valuing the lawsuit at 6.1bn. If Oracle manages to get the 230mil awarded, this means that there were 5.87bn, which they didn't get. That would mean that Oracle has to pay 96% of the whole costs for the lawsuit.

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Can Android be stopped because of this? by mounthood · 2012-02-21 04:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Nobody cares about the money. Can Android be stopped because of this?

Groklaw's latest: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120220133911859

Oracle should think long and hard about whether it wants to persist on the issue of patent infringement or, for that matter, any infringement at all. Those failed settlement discussions probably look a lot more attractive to Oracle right now.

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Mark my words, oh ye infidels by vikingpower · 2012-02-21 04:17 · Score: 2

One day Oracle shall beg Google to be granted the right to pay. On that day, the world shall come crashing down in shards of bytecode, and all the Java geeks shall be confounded.

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The problem with universal languages by sandytaru · 2012-02-21 04:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

- is that you can't get upset when someone uses them universally.

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Re:The problem with outlanding numbers by Penguinisto · 2012-02-21 04:37 · Score: 5, Funny

but, "Billions and Billions" does have a nice ring to it.

Only when Carl Sagan said it.

Anyone else just can't quite seem to pull it off.

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Re:who cares by jemtallon · 2012-02-21 04:55 · Score: 3, Funny

Mr. Madison, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkWH8DB7b0

Why didn't Google buy Sun? by WOOFYGOOFY · 2012-02-21 04:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

Seriously does anyone know if they considered it at all and if they did why they chose not to? Sun and Google seems to me to have been a natural pairing. Certainly all the absolutely first rate R and D that went on at Sun would have fit into Google's culture. So why didn't they?

Re:Why didn't Google buy Sun? by Glock27 · 2012-02-21 05:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

An excellent point. Google should have, and it was a strategic mistake not to do it. Google uses Java quite a bit internally, it would have not only insulated Google from any Java hijinks, but Google would have (I believe) been a far better steward of Java than Oracle. Google still could have spun off Sun's hardware division, which had not interest for it.
In fact, Java could finally have become what it should have to begin with, and been the premier client-side language for web development, instead of Dart.
Oracle buying Sun was a real inflection point in IT history.

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Re:Why didn't Google buy Sun? by datavirtue · 2012-02-21 06:01 · Score: 2

Because their head has been up their ass for some time now. I hate to say it, I'm a Google fanboy after all, but Google has jumped the shark on a lot of stuff. There is probably a severe culture problem or some type of power jostle that people just don't see, but something is going on.

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I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock

It's not so much about the damages per-se by petermgreen · 2012-02-21 04:59 · Score: 2

Afaict if oracle wins on some patents they will likely be able to get an injunction against google using stuff covered by those patents. If google can't work around them (that is find a way to do what they need to do without stepping on the patent) they will basically be forced to come to some licensing agreement with oracle and since oracle will have them over a barrel said agreement is unlikely to be cheap.

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It's a strategy we've seen before by s.petry · 2012-02-21 05:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes, we saw the same with SCO, Microsoft, and many more. Sadly the plot line reads the same in every script.

Accuser: "They owe us a billion trillion dollars!"

Defendant: "Um, show us what we did wrong."

Accuser: "You stole all the sugar from our candy, and used it in your candy!"

Defendant: "We purchased our own sugar, here's the receipt."

Accuser: "Um.. You owe us one thousand dollars!"

Defendant: "What did we do wrong?"

Accuser: "We were going to buy that sugar, and you cut in line."

So the next act that plays out is going to be whether a jury thinks that taking cuts in line is worth paying the accuser any money for. With SCO, it did not turn out so well. With Microsoft and Apple it has paid off about 1% of the time. Lets hope the court and jury follow the norm and tell Oracle to grow up and act like a big business now.

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-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

Re:It's a strategy we've seen before by idontgno · 2012-02-21 08:19 · Score: 2

Actually, one facet of the case is overtly weirder than any fantasy scenario you could cook up (pun intended):
Accuser: "You owe us $100,000"
Defendant: "Now what did we do?"
Accuser: " We patented making candy with sugar. You're making candy with sugar. That's one violation. Furthermore, our candy cookbook says you're not allowed to use our recipes to create any candy which would compete with our candy,, because you'd be violating our patent, and we withdraw your permission to read our cookbook if you violate our patent. You admitted your candy is based on reading our cookbook. You violated our copyright TOO! YOU OWES US BEEG MONEYZ!!!111"
For those who don't want to absorb the entire groklaw article: Oracle's Java specification license attempts to assert its copyright over any work written to implement the specification. If you write a "competing" implementation of the Java API based on the specification, you're retroactively violating the copyright license on the specification you read. That's right, you dirty retroactively violating pirate.
I hope the court realizes what flaming arrogant idiots Oracle is coming across as. And punishes them for it, rather than rewarding them for it, as often happens.

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Re:The problem with outlanding numbers by stevew · 2012-02-21 06:14 · Score: 2

According to my reading at Groklaw - it's going to likely be more like $20-$30 million. There is a good chance that the third report(and extraordinary even having a third chance at the apple in and of itself) didn't rectify the problems the court directed Oracle to fix. They may loose ALL testimony on damages. They have managed to shoot themselves in the foot quite satisfactorily.

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Re:who cares by poetmatt · 2012-02-21 06:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

"if Oracle Wins"?

You do realize that they might not even get a settlement - this is assuming the judge even lets this go to trial.

Then again, it's not like they had a case in the first place.

Re:who cares by Bert64 · 2012-02-21 07:27 · Score: 3, Informative

The difference is that MS claimed their implementation was java, which it's clearly not.
Google only ever claimed their language was similar to java, which it is.

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Re:J2ME != JESE by marcosdumay · 2012-02-21 11:31 · Score: 2

Sorry, but you can download J2SE for free, and even distribute it embebed on your installer if you follow some simple requirements.

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Re:who cares by slack_justyb · 2012-02-21 14:56 · Score: 3, Informative

There is a lot that is different here. I think someone needs to enumerate them and I'm sure someone else has already done so. However, since I can find no enumeration actively, I'll do so here. I beg forgiveness to anyone who's already done this because they've most likely done a better job than myself.

Microsoft v Sun - This wasn't a patent case. This was mostly a breach of contract case. Microsoft signed an agreement with Sun Microsystems at the time, to implement a version of the JVM for Microsoft Windows. This was actually par for the course in the start-up days of Java, to have a JVM, the OS maker had to write the JVM and only if they had a signed agreement could the OS maker do so. (It's one of the reasons Microsoft felt really compelled to start .NET)

Back on track... Microsoft put some value added stuff in their JVM that basically made java byte code developed for MS-JVM incompatible with other JVMs. Namely, RNI and J/Direct to name a few. This was strictly not what Microsoft agreed to in the deal. It was found in court that Microsoft had made the MS-JVM specifically with the idea to hijack Java altogether as part of a wider embrace, extend, and extinguish that involved Netscape as well. Bytecode from another vendor would run on MS-JVM, but if the same source was compiled with Microsoft's javac (java compiler) then the bytecode would fail on every other JVM out there. This was especially true with the implementation of Java Sockets which explicitly loaded two different libraries. One for other bytecode and one for MS bytecode.

Now the biggest problem, other than Microsoft had signed an agreement to not do this, was that Microsoft was calling this Java and cited that the agreement allowed them to slap a Java logo on their product. Sun took offense to that idea and additionally sued their butts for trademark infringement. That last part is what is important here. Trademark infringement.

Let's switch over to Google...

In this case we are now dealing with Oracle v Google. The case between the two isn't a single point of law that's being brought up, just like the Sun v Microsoft was contractual, trademark, and anti-trust. What Google did was create a new virtual machine, which is not illegal. However, their choice programming language borrows the Java programming language syntax, which while not illegal, does draw the platform as a whole and the virtual machine in question. Google doesn't brand their platform as being Java and they've signed no contract with Oracle or Sun before that, agreeing that they would stick to the Java spec.

Oracle brings up the issue that Google's implementation pollutes the Java ecosystem, but there again, Google makes no claims to their VM being Java. That said, Oracle still takes issue that you have things like java.lang.String and so forth. Mind you that the Oracle java.lang.String and Google java.lang.String are two different beast. Which brings us to the underlying issue.

Google's implementation of the Java Language Spec (JLS), at least the parts that they borrow, did not come from code that is under Oracle's protection. It came from the Apache Harmony project which is under a different license than the JLS. Thus one point to argue in court is, is it legal to make an implementation of a language, even part of it, that is neither a standard (ISO/ECMA) and not under an open license (remember this was what all the brew-ha-ha was with the Apache split from the JCP.) I can write my own C++ compiler because it is a standard (ISO) so long as I don't use any methods that others have patented. I can write my own Python compiler because it is under an open license, again so long as I obey the license and don't use any already patented methods. Java, however, is neither a standard or under an open license (an implementation is open sourced called OpenJDK but Java the language is still not under an open license.)

Because of this, think of the API (the names of the functions

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Oracle's Java Claims Now Down To $230 Million

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