Oracle and Google Settlement Talks Falter; Trial Set for April 16

Fluffeh writes "Recently, a Judge ordered Oracle and Google to have yet another sit down and chat, but these talks have come to an impasse: 'Despite their diligent efforts and those of their able counsel, the parties have reached an irreconcilable impasse in their settlement discussions,' Judge Paul Grewal of US District Court for the Northern California wrote Monday. 'No further conferences shall be convened. The parties should instead direct their entire attention to the preparation of their trial presentations. Good luck.'"

Comments

Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be mad as hell if I was on that jury for weeks or months and got some stipend like $50 day, parking tickets not included.

Re:Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[FatdogHaiku]

I'd be mad as hell if I was on that jury for weeks or months and got some stipend like $50 day, parking tickets not included.

Jurors are paid an attendance fee of $40.00 per day. Regardless of means of travel, jurors also receive round-trip mileage from their home to the courthouse at the rate currently authorized by the Internal Revenue Service. The court validates juror parking at specific parking lots near the courthouse and reimburses bridge tolls when applicable.
Source:http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/juryfaq#question_6

Re:Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[cbope]

I just love it, citizens of the US will stand up for trial by jury until their death, but jury service is something you always weasel out of with lame excuses.

Listen, you live in a democracy (well... it was at one time, not so much anymore), part of your obligation as a citizen of the US is jury service, to provide for fair trials of the accused.

Re:Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[flimflammer]

Many people cannot afford jury duty. The $40 a day does not cut it for many people. Of course I would "weasel" out of jury duty if it put my finances or employment in danger, especially if it was a trial between Google and Oracle, both with more money than they can throw away wrestled in lengthy trials. Employers may be forced to give you time off for jury duty, but when shit is hitting the fan at work, and even when it's not, taking that time off does not look good for you and your prospects of keeping your job. You try telling your employer that you're sorry the company is in one of the biggest crunch time periods in its history and you're one of the pivotal cogs in the machine, but you're going to be gone for a few weeks and see how long you stay employed there. It doesn't even need to be that hectic to attract the ire of your boss.

Jury duty as it exists right now is a load of crap. Jurors should be properly reimbursed for their time if jury duty is compulsory.

Re:Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[flimflammer]

It happens, yes. I am not being delusional. Many employers practically expect you to request exemption from jury duty, unofficially, of course. They won't just up and fire you for going, but your willingness to leave when you're needed when it's so incredibly easy to get out of jury duty gives them added reason not to keep you when reviews come around.

It's not particularly hard to find cases of this on the internet.

Re:Oracle and Google should compensate the jury

[AdrianKemp]

Not that it applies in all cases, because some people do not have the skill set required to choose their place of work.

If my employer was a douche about jury duty (they aren't, fyi) I'd be getting a new job. Any employer who *expects* their workers to skip out on duty, especially such an important one, does not deserve intelligent or skilled workers.

Just remember.

[philip.paradis]

No matter who wins, the lawyers get paid, and "winning" is an ill-defined thing in fights between players like these anyhow.

Re:Just remember.

[poetmatt]

google has shown time and time again that they a: constantly prevail in patents claims and b: absolutely refuse to settle.

they know what they are doing, and oracle's looking at maybe a million dollars these days. Quite a far cry from the billions, right? "whoops". Then we have this new doom and gloom, some idiot investor claiming their patent is the reason why google exists.

the microsoft fudtrain rolls on and on.

Re:Just remember.

[Anonymous Coward]

time is on his side. when was the last time it din't come out that MS wasn't behind a lot of malice and they were in fact helping companies from patent mess ? Microsoft is always fishing in troubled waters. SCO is a potent reminder of what Microsoft was/ will be capable of doing regardless of any temporary change of heart for PR purposes. MS went out of the way to scuttle the entire ISO organization's legitimacy by rigging the entire system worldwide to support ooxml, just shows they have never changed as an abusive entity

Re:Just remember.

[philip.paradis]

Your post makes nearly no sense, and I'm convinced it got modded up simply because you tossed in a reference to Microsoft. Also, where did I mention Microsoft to begin with?

Re:Just remember.

[ozmanjusri]

poetmatt takes any opportunity to slide in an anti-microsoft comment

How can it be anti-Microsoft when it's a simple statement of fact.

http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/02/how-microsoft-pays-big-money-to-smear-google-audaciously/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/07/icomp_productivity_commission/
http://techrights.org/2011/08/08/burson-marsteller-busted/

Re:Just remember.

[ozmanjusri]

naturally there was never any specifics about who, what or where

"An Ars Technica article sources Groklaw stating that at Portugal's national body TC meeting, "representatives from Microsoft attempted to argue that Sun Microsystems, the creators and supporters of the competing OpenDocument format (ODF), could not be given a seat at the conference table because there was a lack of chairs."[37]
In Sweden, Microsoft notified the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) that an employee sent a memo to two of its partners, requesting them to join the SIS committee and vote in favor of Office Open XML in return for "marketing contributions".[38] Jason Matusow, a Director in the Corporate Standards Strategy Team at Microsoft, stated that the memo was the action of an individual employee acting outside company policy, and that the memo was retracted as soon as it was discovered.[citation needed] SIS have since changed its voting procedure so that a member has to actually participate before he is allowed to vote.[39] Sweden invalidated its vote (80% was for approval) as one company cast more than one vote, which is against SIS policy.[40]
Finnish IT journalists described that meeting as raising strong differences in opinions.[41][42]
In Switzerland, SNV registered a vote of "approval with comments," and there was some criticism about a "conflict of interest" regarding the chairman of the UK 14 sub-committee, who did not allow discussion of licensing, economic and political arguments.[43][44] In addition, the chairman of the relevant SNV parent committee is also the secretary general of Ecma International[citation needed], which approved OOXML as a standard. Further complaints regarded "committee stuffing", which is however allowed by present SNV rules, and non-adherence to SNV rules by the UK 14 chairman, which resulted in a re-vote with the same result.[citation needed]
Australia's national standards body, Standards Australia, was criticized for its handling of the OOXML process by the New Zealand Open Source Society,[45] the open source advisory firm Waugh Partners, Australian National University Professor Roger Clarke[citation needed], OASIS lawyer Andrew Updegrove[citation needed], IBM[citation needed] and Google[citation needed]. Standards Australia sent ISO SC 34 expert and XML and Schematron specialist Rick Jelliffe to the BRM, despite critics[46] alleging that Jelliffe would not represent the views of those opposing the standardization. Jelliffe had previously been in the news after being offered payment by Microsoft to improve incorrect Wikipedia articles about Office Open XML.[47] Microsoft had bought a schema conversion tool from his company and he had performed the initial conversion of the Office Open XML schemas from XML Schemas to RELAX NG[citation needed], both schema languages he had been involved in standardizing. It was alleged that Standards Australia had broken a previous public pledge to send two internal employees to the BRM.[48][49] However Standards Australia issued a press release denying this and stating that the Computerworld article was "was riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations.”[50]
Norway's vote was decided by Standard Norge; the mostly opposing viewpoints of the technical committee were ignored after members were unable to reach consensus. Membership in the technical committee had risen from 6–7 to 30 members; all of the pre-OOXML members argued in favour of a "no" vote.[51][52][53][54] In October 2008, 13 of the 23 members, 12 of which are associated with the open-source movement,[55] resigned[56] after OOXML was ratified by ISO and all appeals were rejected.
The IDABC community programme (which is managed by the European Commission) runs the "Open Source Observatory" which is "dedicated to Free/Libre/Open Source Software."[57] Via its "Open Source News", it has reported on reports which criticize the standardization process.
It states that the German IT news site Heise reports that in Germany, two opponents of Office Open XML,

Re:Just remember.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, let's be fair now. Facebook also spends a lot of money to slander Google through the press.

Re:Just remember.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Your post makes nearly no sense, and I'm convinced it got modded up simply because you tossed in a reference to Microsoft. Also, where did I mention Microsoft to begin with?

Hey, you mentioned Microsoft just now, and YOU got modded up too! Does that always work?

Um, Microsoft... sucks or something.

Re:Just remember.

[DrXym]

I think Oracle was hoping for a quick settlement, in exchange for a piece of the Android pie. Look how they squandered J2ME for years and then they go seeking damages from Google on the basis of some spurious patents. I'm sure they thought they could muscle their way in and demand a few dollars licencing fee for every activated device or similar.

Now their patents have been whittled down to a couple both of which can probably be worked around this is little more than an argument about pocket change. Even if Google were compelled to give them a hundred million bucks it would be little more than pocket change for either company.

Re:good luck and good night

[FoolishOwl]

I know "good luck" is an innocuous expression of goodwill, but it always seems a little weird to wish someone good luck in a matter that's supposed to be decided solely through legal reasoning -- especially when it's the judge wishing luck.

Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[mark-t]

... for Oracle if Oracle completely lost this?

Also, what would it mean for Google if Oracle was entitled to everything they asked for?

I'm just curious. What are some possible scenarios that could arise from this? What could it mean for Java? What could it mean for Android? What about other parties?

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[ohnocitizen]

If Oracle loses, Larry Ellison will owe Bill Gates $1. If Oracle wins, Larry Ellison will win $1 from Bill Gates, and has permission to open a bottle of no no juice for a totally grown up celebration.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[Microlith]

Do note that since this started, Florian has been portending doom and gloom for Google at each step, and now we're down to a single issue, a judge who isn't giving a kind ear to Oracle's demands, and a refused settlement offer from Google to Oracle.

When this was supposed to end Android and all of Google's mobile ambitions, at least according to Florian.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[oxdas]

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree. It has been my experience that Florian Mueller has an agenda and it is not for the betterment of FOSS. In the cases I have read on his blog, his analysis is wrong at least as much as it is right. That said, he is not a journalist, nor a lawyer, but a blogger and entitled to his opinion. Like any blog, I would recommend you read it with some skepticism.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[ChunderDownunder]

Well regardless of who wins (the lawyers!), the outcome I'm hoping for is whereby Google and Oracle collaborate on the future of Java. Meaning:

• Google licenses the openjdk class libraries under the GPL + Classpath Exception
• Oracle modularises Java (Project Jigsaw, Kernel JVM) so that reduced footprints can be deployed by default on restrained devices
• Oracle assists in JCK testing of dalvik as a certifiable JVM - 'legacy' swing apps on your Android tablet
• Oracle adandons the outdated Java ME
• Oracle abandons the contentious 'field of use' on openjdk
• Oracle contributes its closed source Java SE embedded implementation to openjdk - spanked dalvik in benchmarks
• Oracle ports JavaFX as a first class citizen on Android
• Google assists in enabling Android applications to run on standard desktops

J2ME lost relevance in the mobile space years ago and this is just a grab for cash from Oracle to extract money from Sun's carcass. Focus on the real adversaries of Java - proprietary OSes of Apple and MS. An Oracle/Google partnership helps grow the Java brand.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Fosspatents reporting has been very onsided and has been wrong every time in his predictions Dont listen to Florian.

If you want an indepth analysis and diskussion of this and other computor science related IP cases in our courts then its only one site on the net that provides that with bravur and thats

http://www.groklaw.net/

Groklaw deliver the goods. Its prediction of the outcome has been correct in this and many other legal cases.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[symbolset]

This is going to not happen.

Re:Can somebody lay out what it would mean.....

[rec9140]

April Fools was Sunday... Nice try...

None of that is even remotely going to happen.

The only thing LtT (Larry the Tyrannt) wants is $$$$ to purchase more yachts.

The only that is going to happen is appeal regardless of who wins, and the only way the google can put this ogre out of business is to slay it with some sort of the same crap... patents...and lawsuits.... not my thing... but that unfortunately is now the norm, sadly.

Re:good luck and good night

[scdeimos]

"Good luck" was from the submitter (or one of the /. editors), not from any of the source material.

Re:good luck and good night

[grouchomarxist]

Actually, it looks like the judge said "good luck" http://www.scribd.com/doc/87691774/Oracle-Google-fail-to-settle-court-order

Re:What are they fighting about?

[rkhalloran]

For in-depth, of course, groklaw.net, but in short: Oracle (aka One Raving A*hole Named Larry Ellison) filed suit on the Googleplex for beeelyuns of dollars claiming Android and its Dalvik VM infringed various patents and copyrights in Java they own from the Sun acquisition.

Google countered that a) Sun never raised the issue back when Android first came out and Oracle shouldn't now be able to claim damages (legal term: laches) b) Dalvik was based on the Apache Harmony project, a "clean-room" implementation c) many/all of the patents now claimed by Oracle are dubious.

On review, many of the patents *have* been overturned on review, and at this point Oracle's claims are chiefly based on infringing about three dozen of the Java *APIs* as regards arrangement of arguments, etc. The potential damages have been substantially cut back as well, after the judge threw out two claim reports by Oracle, to around $44 million.

Oracle is being represented by Boies Schiller, the same wonderful firm that's [ still stuck ] representing SCO (excuse me, SCOXQ.PK, heh heh) in their futile anti-Linux efforts.