Google To Pay $0 To Oracle In Copyright Case

An anonymous reader writes "In a hearing in the US District Court today, it was determined that Google will pay a net total of nothing for Oracle's patent claims against them. In fact, Google is given 14 days to file an application for Oracle to pay legal fees to Google (in a similar manner to how things are done for frivolous lawsuits). However, it is not quite peaches and roses for Google, as Oracle is planning on appealing the decision in the case.'"

Comments

Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

So Oracle is all, "well, we got screwed because we got the smart judge. Maybe in an appeal we can get the dilhole judge. The one who can't write rangeCheck in 2 minutes."

Re:Oracle

[O('_')O_Bush]

What a slap in the face... but one Oracle desperately needed.

Re:Oracle

[Kagetsuki]

Let's hope they get a few more if they keep appealing.

Re:Oracle

[Abreu]

Considering that Larry Ellison is buying himself a frikking island, perhaps the slap in the face finally pushed him into super-villainy...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/larry-ellisons-island-ora_n_1614130.html

Re:Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Previous rulings are viewed as the starting point for appeals, and it's up to Oracle to try and prove why that ruling was flawed. Especially in a case like this, where a higher judge is much less likely to understand the matter, they'll treat Alsup's judgment very highly and are unlikely to overrule it.

Re:Oracle

[poetmatt]

and yet only a small step from "6 billion dollars", huh.

Oracle has screwed up so badly even their lawyers are looking horrible.

Re:Oracle

[Just Some Guy]

From the article:

Murdock [the current owner] said in a statement that selling Lanai [the sixth-largest Hawaiian island] was not an impulsive decision, but he has been looking for a buyer who would have the right enthusiasm, commitment and respect for the island's residents.

...so he decided to sell to freaking Ellison?!? Yeah, that'll end well.

Re:Oracle

[blackest_k]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18529739

only 98% of the island of Lanai thou , the plan was for Google to pay for the other 2% but things didn't quite work out...

Re:Oracle

[inode_buddha]

These are the same lawyers that shredded MS in the antitrust case, and then lost their bowels in SCO vs sanity. Seeing your username I think you knew that, but I wanted to point out the interesting history for others. I strongly suspect that Boies will modify their terms of engagement before taking on new clients in the future...

Re:Oracle

[EdIII]

perhaps the slap in the face finally pushed him into super-villainy...

I think he has been there for years.

It's just one more purchase in a long line of super villiany like purchases. Think about it. Yachts, Islands, massive Data Centers. It's like he decided to purchase everything he ever saw a James Bond villain have.

I wonder if he has a white cat....

Re:Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that'll end well.

According to the pattern, he will buy the thing, and then go behind those who support and use it, and sue them.

Re:Oracle

[sconeu]

Yes, it was BSF, but they also had hired the MoFos (and, no, that's not a joke domain, it's legit).

The MoFos trashed BSF in the SCO/Novell suit.

Re:Oracle

[catmistake]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18529739

only 98% of the island of Lanai thou , the plan was for Google to pay for the other 2% but things didn't quite work out...

check Google Maps.... the island Is crawling with Street View... and in high definition.

Re:Oracle

[Lisias]

How many coding judges USA have?

Re:Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how close that figure is to the amount that Oracle paid for Sun, I guarantee you that before Oracle bought Sun, someone doing analysis of potential take over targets shortlisted Sun based on the Java IP. I'll bet that they thought it was a slam dunk that Sun could have won an IP lawsuit against Google and that made them an ideal takeover target since they have what Oracle would call an underutilized asset in the Java IP.

Which of course is a massive miscalculation, but then again most corporate acquisitions turn out to be massive miscalculations.

Re:Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if he has a white cat....

No, but he gets plenty of blonde pussy.

Re:Oracle

[Chrisq]

Yeah, that'll end well.

According to the pattern, he will buy the thing, and then go behind those who support and use it, and sue them.

Then sue everyone else who lives on an island because the docks look the same - one end in deep water and the other on the island.

Re:Oracle

[AssholeMcGee]

You would have to wonder if Oracle did this on purpose? I believe other Judges would have ruled the same way, but I know that most or idiots anyway. Maybe they did this to see how far they could push the issue, or where they stood, maybe other companies try this out and find ways of convincing a smart judge to rule in there favor. As dumb as this lawsuit was, they had to have been experimenting to see where they stood or they just have incredibly dumb management!!!

Re:Oracle

[flimflammer]

Can someone explain to me how the price for 98 percent of a Hawaiian island was only between 500 million and 700 million? I know next to nothing about real estate out there except that I know it's expensive as hell to own even a shack on a tiny plot of land. Is the particular island just not part of the "Hawaiian experience" us mainlanders are led to think about when we hear about that series of tropical islands?

Re:Oracle

[Tough Love]

What a slap in the face... but one Oracle desperately needed.

I doubt that Larry "Big Swinging Dork" Ellison learned a thing.

Re:Oracle

[Tough Love]

and yet only a small step from "6 billion dollars", huh.

Oracle has screwed up so badly even their lawyers are looking horrible.

Oracle's lawyers already looked horrible before the suit even started. Remember, these guys represented SCO. I guess shame is not a word in David Boies' vocabulary.

Re:Oracle

[hairyfeet]

Which is a perfect example of why one shouldn't buy a FOSS company unless one wants to be in the FOSS business, because once the code has been FOSS you can't stuff that cat back in the bag.

Not saying that is a bad thing, after all people like RMS have been preaching for FOSS for just that reason, that you can't put it back behind a paywall once its out there, but if oracle didn't want Sun to be a hardware company (which was what I thought the point was, Oracle OS on Oracle hardware designed for Oracle DBs giving them a full stack approach) then buying it was frankly retarded because Sun had already made any "juicy IP" open source and thus worthless for trolling. agree 100% with the ruling and am frankly shocked oracle would have been that damned dumb.

Re:Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I think the justification for the suit came from the fact that Google is doing it's own thing loosely based on Sun's standard Java ecosystem which is open. They were thinking that they still had the ability to sue people outside of that ecosystem for patent and copyright infringement (similar to the argument that Microsoft may be able to sue Mono users and developers at any time).

I remember the full stack approach being touted at the time of the merger and I think that was a secondary aspect of the deal. From Oracle's view they were thinking they would get the Java IP (and notably their potential patent and copyright claims wouldn't be devalued by the massive flight of engineers from Sun) and as a bonus they would get the ability to integrate Sun's products with their own (albeit, with some devaluation due to said flight of engineers). Oracle paid more than Sun's market cap for the company so they thought they were getting something that was undervalued in the stock market. I don't think they thought that Sun's hardware and OS business was undervalued since at the time they were moving towards selling support for OpenSolaris on increasingly commoditized hardware, so that leaves the IP as the main motivation for the acquisition.

Re:Oracle

[poetmatt]

I do recall :) They certainly seem to skirt proper court conduct though, as in this case and in the SCO case they have been warned by judges of bad conduct constantly. I wonder if something changed prior to the SCO case?

Re:Oracle

[w_dragon]

You can pull it up on Google Maps and take a look at the island. The 2% not owned is probably most of Lanai City and the airport. The rest of the island looks to be pretty much undeveloped, just a few roads. Even in Hawaii, land is cheap if you need to build your own roads, wells, sewage treatment plants, and are in a hurricane zone.

Re:Oracle

[FreedomOfThought]

Not enough.

Re:Oracle

[Calos]

Per an Ars article, amusingly, some of the appeals work will go back through Judge Alsup's court. So for Oracle, one is one too many :)

Re:Oracle

[gmack]

just like in Microsoft's anti-trust case.

That was different. The judge in the MicroSoft case lost his cool and behaved badly enough that the court of appeals called him out for unethical behavior and even then they didn't overturn his findings of fact.

Re:Oracle

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Especially when the trial court judge, who taught himself java programming, has taken the pains to explain the intricacies of programming in a legalese the appeals court can understand. It would be that much harder to bamboozle the higher court.

Re:Oracle

[Immerman]

Let's be clear here - patent infringement is completely unrelated to copyright infringement - the latter requires actual honest-to-deity *copying*, which most any FOSS license allows in perpetuity, provided you comply with it's requirements. Patents on the other hand mean you can infringe by using that cool technique you independently invented in your basement, because someone totally uninvolved already patented a similar technique. No FOSS license will protect you from that, only a very few will even protect you from infringement claims by the very people that open sourced the original code.

Hence much of the worry about MS and others intentionally "poisoning" the open source ecosystem by releasing source using patent-protected techniques without offering indemnification. If they released their patent-encumbered SomeCoolStuff under GPLv2, they can then turn around and sue anyone who redistributes it for patent infringement, regardless of the fact that they explicitly granted a copyright license allowing exactly that, and even if they promised (in a non-legally-binding manner) never to sue for patent infringement. And since patents, unlike trademarks, don't have a "defend it or lose it" clause, that legal threat will be there on all derivative works until the patents expire.

Re:Oracle

[Beat The Odds]

Considering that Larry Ellison is buying himself a frikking island, perhaps the slap in the face finally pushed him into super-villainy...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/larry-ellisons-island-ora_n_1614130.html

Probably something along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GO3mccvTCs

Re:Oracle

[hairyfeet]

Except the "ZOMFG M$ is gonna poison us with Mono ZOMFG!" argument is a load of deep fried horseshit because they have already covered it in their "We won't sue" pledge which is legally binding and has been published all over the place by MSFT themselves so it isn't like they can claim it was someone without authorization, not that even that would stand up in court.

You can read it on the wiki and see that its similar to IBMs ISP and Sun's ODPS licenses. the only one bitching is old RMS' bunch since it isn't compatible with GPL. Well neither is most licenses including MPL by Mozilla, but that doesn't have people screaming "They gonna poison teh well ZOMFG!"

Show us a SINGLE case, just one, of MSFT actually suing someone over tech covered in the OSP, because otherwise you might as well claim that MSFT secretly has a clone army to take over the world, you have evidence for neither so either could be possible, however unlikely. The simple fact is after making such a clear and plainly written patent pledge no judge in the USA would even let it get to court, they'd be laughed right out of the building. if you don't want to use it because you have an irrational fear then say so, but don't come up with "doom scenarios" without any evidence to back them up, okay?

Re:Oracle

[Immerman]

Did I mention Mono anywhere? Though I admit the parent did so it was a reasonable assumption. Frankly I'm not interested in the OSP - MS did the right thing in one instance, no doubt because they had the European anti-trust decision hanging over their head, but still, good for them. That has zero affect on any of their other patents which they do freely exercise against open source projects, and even more frequently use as vague threats designed to discourage adoption of competing products.

Given their long and... colorful track record, it's perfectly reasonable to assume they will leverage their patents in any way they think they can get away with. I don't know of any cases where they've brought suit against users of poisoned code, but then such a strategy could only be used once or twice before people began purging all potentially poisoned code from their products, so they would likely wait until it would offer a significant strategic advantage.

One fictional (and extreme) scenario - MS offers open-sourced reference implementations of many of their most important OSP-covered specifications, along with a library of helpful utility functions. The offered code infringes several patents not actually required for a compliant implementation (and thus not covered by the OSP), but integral to the specific implementation offered. Then in five or ten years when a crucial market is tilting against them they drop a lawsuit in the lap of their competitor who's code is based on the reference implementation. Their competitor is then forced to re-implement the covered functionality at a critical moment, potentially costing them weeks or months while under injunction, and allowing MS to gain/reclaim dominance in the target market.

You can scream "Paranoia!" all you want, but the fact of the matter is that MS has proven themselves to be a particularly consistent and ruthless shark, turning on and often destroying destroying virtually every company they've ever partnered with, generally via treachery and deception. Under such circumstances it's pure foolishness to assume they've fundamentally changed just because they have a big stick hovering over their head at the moment - jump into their pool at your own risk, and I won't bet on your survival if you decide to take up residence.

Re:Oracle

[hairyfeet]

The problem with your doom scenario is the law actually already has tons of precedent for not allowing it, its called laches and is designed for EXACTLY the scenario your are proposing and is backed by dozens of cases worth of precedent.

So yet again MSFT would be laughed right out of court, the ONLY thing it would do is risk obliterating their claims to the non OSP pledge patents. But again show me a SINGLE CASE, just one mind you, of MSFT actually doing what you are suggesting and suing over something covered by OSP. Because so far MSFT has been pretty damned clear what is and isn't covered by OSP and has only sued for those things not covered such as FAT32 which is now being replaced by ExFAT. Nowhere is their file systems under OSP, nor do you need their file systems to be covered under OSP to use the code under OSP, therefor it has nothing to do with the OSP covered code.

so if the only thing you can come up with is "doom scenarios" without a shred of proof its FUD, no different than RIAA FUD, Oracle FUD, MSFT FUD, or any other FUD. Its not based on any evidence, its all based on doom scenarios, no different than the RIAA saying artists are gonna starve if you don't give them endless copyrights, its FUD.

Re:Oracle

[Immerman]

Except that the applicability of laches to patent law is somewhat in doubt - otherwise the whole issue of "submarine patents" would be completely non-existent. You also seem to be under the mistaken assumption that a claim need be valid to be useful, the reality is that it simply needs to be credible enough to justify a potentially long and expensive trial - just look at how long the SCO Group versus IBM trial dragged out, and the only evidence of any infringement there was a few non-copyrightable header files. (Incidentally, a case which MS, through various shell companies, appears to have encouraged and helped fund, but that's neither here nor there)

Assuming they have some claim that might be able to stand up in court, why on earth would they exercise it now? Really, since this seems to be the main thrust of your argument I'd like your explanation. I'll happily explain why they wouldn't: Firstly they're still under scrutiny by the EU, who've proven themselves to actually be willing to take steps against their anticompetitive behavior (the primary reason the OSP exists at all). Secondly the entire point of a "poisoning" strategy would be to plant the seeds of future litigation which could be invoked at a tactically valuable time, and early on before their code has had a chance to be firmly integrated in competitors projects is definitely not that time. In fact the vast majority of poisoning would be unlikely to *ever* be used, like a field of remote-detonation mines the point is to let the "enemy" wander across it and only strike if/when a strategically valuable target is in a vulnerable position.

Finally, the OSP has nothing to do with code - it's about interoperability standards, as such poisoning doesn't apply directly. Where poisoning is more likely to apply is when MS publishes source code for various unrelated projects, which they're beginning to do. I'm not claiming that they are definitely engaging in poisoning, just saying that given their "collaboration" track record it's reasonable to assume they'll be looking to sabotage any potential competitors by whatever means they can, and open source represents a competitor that is much more difficult to attack than any they've previously faced, so more subtle approaches should be expected.

And no, when a company has consistently sabotaged every collaborative effort they've participated in it's not FUD to assume they will continue to do so, it's common sense. Drawing attention to potential attack vectors is simply reasonable tactical preparedness. So how about you defend your position - given their track record why should anyone trust *any* contribution or offer of collaboration extended by Microsoft?

Re:Oracle

[lsatenstein]

Considering that Larry Ellison is buying himself a frikking island, perhaps the slap in the face finally pushed him into super-villainy...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/larry-ellisons-island-ora_n_1614130.html

Perhaps he has too many enemies and needs a safe haven, from where he an plot his next devious action. His yacht was too confining. I believe it was a too hundred footer, the island should be big enough in which to get lost.

Re:Oracle

[poetmatt]

Without digging into the whole conversation here, I just want to add: hairyfeet is actually exact correct, laches is referenced extremely often when it comes to legal cases. It's not questionable - it's pretty strongly noted. It's just that it's not the primary defense because most of the time it's more a question of "is this patent even valid?"

Patents in software are being pushed back more and more, so a shaky broad claim in a patent will not simply stick through a trial or even make it *to a trial* anymore. Judges are waking up to this nonsense. There are more and more precedents affirmed even by SCOTUS affirming exactly that. Bilski simply set the tone.

$0? Even I usually tip 25 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

when I buy my cup of Java at DD.

Cute

[multicoregeneral]

The best part of the article is in how they came up with the zero dollar figure. You can't make this stuff up. Well, I suppose you could...

Weird ruling

[sideslash]

It blows my mind that Google can use a fairly complete Java clone over Oracles objections and pay nothing, while Apple sues people's socks off for making tablets shaped like rounded rectangles, and adding bounce to their scrollable views. I'm not a fan of software patents, so not saying I'm unhappy with the result. Just weirded out at the cluelessness of the legal system.

Re:Weird ruling

[shentino]

They are not clueless.

They know damn well what they are doing.

Remember, this is the same legal environment that packed the DOJ with ex-RIAA attorneys.

Re:Weird ruling

[fredprado]

As far as I know (and I can be wrong on that) Apple has never won any copyright case yet. The maximum it achieved with its patent trolling was temporary injunctions in some markets like Germany and Australia.

Re:Weird ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

I think PsyStar would disagree that Apple hasn't won any copyright cases.

Re:Weird ruling

[fredprado]

That was about customization of MacOS in non Apple Machines and Apple's abusive EULA. PsyStar bough licenses from Apple and used them in a way that broke the EULA. It had nothing to do with copyright.

Re:Weird ruling

[jonwil]

It was also a DMCA violating because PsyStar circumvented the technological protection measures in OSX.

Re:Weird ruling

[bmo]

How is it a weird ruling?

It's one of the most sane rulings to come down the pike.

The other rulings that shock the conscience are the weird rulings.

--
BMO

Re:Weird ruling

[steveha]

I think Apple's patents fall into two major categories: "design patents" that cover appearance, and UI innovations that come about because Apple has done a good job of pushing the frontiers of the user experience.

"Rounded corners" and such are an example of the design patents, and that is a whole different category from technology patents like the ones on Java. Does not apply; moving on.

Apple's UI innovation patents, as far as it seems to me (a non-lawyer), are mostly about doing something that hasn't been done before and trying to patent as much of it as possible. Some of these patents are bogus (IMHO the pinch-zoom gesture is an obvious thing to do if you have a multitouch display, so shouldn't be patentable) but some of these might not be bogus.

On the other hand, the Java patents were really weak. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) was hardly the first VM ever; the UCSD "p-System" VM is over three decades old, so Sun couldn't patent the basic idea of a VM to let programs run anywhere. So they patented a few aspects of Java, and then Oracle claimed in court that the Dalvik VM infringed those patents. But I've read several analyses of these patents, and they pretty much agreed that the patents were weak. It seems the court agreed.

Finally, why should Google pay Oracle? Google is using a different VM, all new and all original code. Google isn't using the Java trademark, and doesn't have any agreement with Oracle. As people have observed here on Slashdot: If you want to argue that Oracle "owns" Java so completely that nobody may copy it, then maybe the creators of the C programming language and the C standard library could collect staggering royalties from pretty much the whole world.

Google making Dalvik over the objections of Oracle is just like Dodge making a car over the objections of Ford. You can see why there might be objections, but society shouldn't interfere.

steveha

Re:Weird ruling

[c0lo]

That was about customization of MacOS in non Apple Machines and Apple's abusive EULA. PsyStar bough licenses from Apple and used them in a way that broke the EULA. It had nothing to do with copyright.

IANAL... but it seems to me a EULA draws its legal basis from copyright laws (like in "I'm giving you this piece of copyrighted work - in this case MacOS - and you agree to do with it as per EULA"). Pretty much the same as BSD/Apache/GPL/whatever open source license does.
You're sure PsyStar case has nothing to do with copyright?

Re:Weird ruling

[ganjadude]

thats what makes it weird. The fact that it actually makes sense.

Re:Weird ruling

[sideslash]

fanboyism

We certainly wouldn't want any of that.

Re:Weird ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove the logos and brandnames from most laptops and I bet the same sort of lawyers won't be able to tell which laptop was made by which manufacturer.

Heck I know people who don't know the model or even brand of cars they are using. They just know the colour.

Re:Weird ruling

[mug funky]

no, a patent is not on an idea.

a patent (at least, how they used to be) describes an invention. the invention is an implementation of an idea.

i hate to nitpick, but there's a difference between selling an invention and sitting at home going "i thought of that!" and whining that everyone steals your ideas when an idea cannot be owned unless you work to manifest it in the physical world.

the problem with the patent system is all the "...on a computer" rehashes of existing _ideas_ providing a loophole that allows patents to effectively be granted on ideas.

a software patent would be fine if it covered more than dead simple subroutines. if the software performed a similar function to a machine designed for a task, and the patent was on the entire implementation, it'd all be peachy. the problem is code is not math, it's not literature, and it's not a physical object, so the patent system is just not equipped to deal with it in an analogous way to machines.

Re:Weird ruling

[shentino]

Actually, the RIAA and the "clueless"-ness are simply both symptoms of corruption.

Re:Weird ruling

[fredprado]

EULA is a contract. It draws its legals base from an agreement between the parts involved. Certainly one of the parts needs to have some rights over whatever is being used by the other (be it copyright, ownership, etc), but to break the EULA you don't need to violate these rights, which was exactly what happened in PsyStar's case. PsyStar didn't copy Apple's product, they bought every one of the licenses they used. They didn't violate any copyright from Apple, but still they didn't obey the EULA they have agreed upon when they licensed the software.

So, yes, I am pretty sure the case wasn't about copyright, patents or anything remotely associated with suing someone for making a product in the same shape as yours.

Re:Weird ruling

[Xenx]

Depending on the circumstances, I might have trouble telling them apart. However, under any realistic viewing I can tell them apart. Add to that the fact that I have a tablet that doesn't look anything like the iPad. What do people always think it is? an iPad.

So, I would take that whole thing with a grain of salt.

Re:Weird ruling

[fredprado]

What protections? I am not aware OSX has any DRM to be broken. And they certainly didn't do any pirate copy of the software. Psystar just hacked some drivers into OSX, which I am pretty sure is not covered by DCMA. AFAIK, this case it was a pure EULA violation and no DCMA violation claim was made by Apple.

Re:Weird ruling

[c0lo]

EULA is a contract. It draws its legals base from an agreement between the parts involved. Certainly one of the parts needs to have some rights over whatever is being used by the other (be it copyright, ownership, etc), but to break the EULA you don't need to violate these rights, which was exactly what happened in PsyStar's case.
PsyStar didn't copy Apple's product, they bought every one of the licenses they used. They didn't violate any copyright from Apple, but still they didn't obey the EULA they have agreed upon when they licensed the software.

Thanks. +Insightful

Re:Weird ruling

[sideslash]

Can you enter into a contract just by buying something? Isn't it true that EULAs have never really been tested in court? (If you're right, then Apple/Psystar is an example, maybe I'll have to read more about this.) Can I sell you a book with an attached EULA that says you may only read it in a blue rocking chair, and if you violate that you have to give the book back with no refund, and you agree to the contract merely by purchasing the book? Virtual property is problematic in many ways.

Re:Weird ruling

[jonwil]

OSX contains checks inside parts of the OS (e.g. windowing system) to verify that its running on legitimate apple hardware. (or at least it did last time I heard about it). That to me would count as a "technological protection measure" under the DMCA.
The fact that Apple didn't use the DMCA in court doesn't necessarily mean that what Pystar did isn't a DMCA violation.

Re:Weird ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything that should actually hurt Apple, as iPad seems to have become generic...

Re:Weird ruling

[IntlHarvester]

No, Psystar was found to be violating Apple's base copyrights. They weren't installing directly from the disks, they had copied the software to an imaging server, so each installation was considered to be an unauthorized copy.

Apple's case was brought on copyright, EULA, patents, trademarks, and I believe the DMCA. The judge gave them a total victory on all counts IIRC. Psystar wasn't exactly the greatest test case.

Re:Weird ruling

[c0lo]

Can you enter into a contract just by buying something? Isn't it true that EULAs have never really been tested in court?

The way I know, in civil laws, what it is not forbidden, then it is allowed. If that's true, then the fact that EULA hasn't been tested in a court as a contract (much less ruled that it is not), it means it is allowed to act as a contract.

(If you're right, then Apple/Psystar is an example, maybe I'll have to read more about this.) Can I sell you a book with an attached EULA that says you may only read it in a blue rocking chair, and if you violate that you have to give the book back with no refund, and you agree to the contract merely by purchasing the book?

By purchasing the software (by extension, a book would fall under the same) with a shrinkwrap license that doesn't allow you to read its terms: it seems the precedents indicate it is not enforceable.

But if you have had the occasion to read the license before buying it and/or if the seller offers you the opportunity to return it and get a refund in case you don't agree with the license, the answer seems to be yes, it is enforceable.

Under some debate: EULA's that require to give away some rights (e.g. bring class actions, enter arbitration instead suing, benchmarking/criticizing the products), the things are still evolving.

Virtual property is problematic in many ways.

Otherwise, I agree with you: dam'd ferengies with their rules of acquisition.

Re:Weird ruling

[UnknowingFool]

Not according to the judge. Psystar lost both on copyright and DMCA counts.

After full briefing and oral argument, Psystar was found liable for infringement of Apple's copyrights in Mac OS X by violating Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works (Dkt. No. 214 at 10). Psystar was also found liable for contributory copyright infringement by intentionally inducing and encouraging its customers to directly infringe Apple's copyrights through its sale of unauthorized copies of Mac OS X to the public (Id. at 10). 1 Finally, Psystar was found liable for violating Sections 1201(a)(1), 1201(a)(2), and 1201(b)(1) of the DMCA for circumvention and trafficking in circumvention devices (Id. at 13-14). Each of Psystar's asserted defenses were rejected as either waived or without merit.

Re:Weird ruling

[TapeCutter]

Can you enter into a contract just by buying something?

Buying something IS a contract! At it's most basic level it is an agreement to exchange physical items or services.

Yep, but having the audactity to treat a judge like a fool by attempting to enforce it in court would likely backfire and do serious damage to your bank account.

Re:Weird ruling

[TapeCutter]

Sorry for the fucked up quote tags :( The missing quote is - "Can I sell you a book with an attached EULA that says you may only read it in a blue rocking chair, and if you violate that you have to give the book back with no refund, and you agree to the contract merely by purchasing the book?".

Re:Weird ruling

[oxdas]

And yet many judges have decided that Samsung did not violate Apple's designs, starting with Apple's opening salvo in the Netherlands. Apple's design is of a rounded cornered rectangle with a display in the center (that's it). Any media device could be seen to violate it.

Apple is suing Samsung because they are their biggest competitor. Samsung outsold Apple in smartphones for 2011 by 5.5 million units and widened their lead in the first quarter of 2012 to 10 million more units (45 million to 35 million). Samsung has also made tablet inroads and are now the number two tablet company. Smartphones are the cash cow of both Apple and Samsung. Apple's marketshare in smartphones has fallen to 23% while Android has increased to 56%. This has to concern Apple.

Re:Weird ruling

[EdIII]

Can you please STFU about the RIAA? It has nothing to do with this other than to get groupthink fucks to agree with you. These are the same types of fucks who don't know a speeding ticket from a subpoena.

Actually, it has quite a bit to do with it.

The point is that the legal system is broken, not clueless, because the people involved in the deciding part (judges, DOJ) have conflicting interests due to their associations with current/former clients.

That's why Oracle gets a much different result than Apple in the legal system. Not actual logic, ethics, or law, but who you know and where they used to work for.

Re:Weird ruling

[Pathwalker]

Ever look at the contents of /System/Library/Extensions/Dont\ Steal\ Mac\ OS\ X.kext/ ?

Re:Weird ruling

[stephanruby]

It blows my mind that Google can use a fairly complete Java clone over Oracles objections and pay nothing...

Perhaps, the case would have been a little bit different if Sun had not open sourced Java in the first place.

Also, it wasn't against Oracle's objections. You've got to remember that Oracle didn't even own Java at the time Google cloned it. Sun owned it and Sun had no problems with Google cloning it. So it's not like Oracle can even claim it was a victim in all of this, it wasn't.

Re:Weird ruling

[Gumbercules!!]

There's a marked difference in those cases.

In the case of Google vs Oracle, you had an American judge with 2 American companies, so the case was judged on its merits.

In the case of Apple vs Samsung you had an American judge with Apple (American) and Samsung (Korean). The case does not appear to have been judged on its merits (as I am fairly sure Apple didn't really invent the rectangle).

Call me a troll if you wish but this is how we (the rest of the World) understands these cases to be judged.

Re:Weird ruling

[roman_mir]

It is some form of a trap, it may even be a trap with rounded corners. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Re:Weird ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

But Patents give you exclusive rights to the idea

Bzzzt! WRONG.

Re:Weird ruling

[Hognoxious]

complaining about "Apple sue(ing) people's socks off for making tablets shaped like rounded rectangles". Your gross over-simplification of the situation shows a complete lack of understanding of trade dress issues

If anyone has a complete lack of understanding it's you.

Trade dress refers to distinctive aspects of a product or service that denote its source or origin. This could include the decor of a restaurant or the style of staff uniforms.

Design patents apply to the decorative aspects of a functional product. This would include the coca cola bottle shape and the BMW double grille.

Apple's claims fall under the latter. It's bullshit because there's sound practical reasons for round corners, making the device thinner etc etc.

Re:Weird ruling

[Tough Love]

It blows my mind that Google can use a fairly complete Java clone over Oracles objections and pay nothing, while Apple sues people's socks off for making tablets shaped like rounded rectangles

I suspect that if Apple had sued Google over rounded corners they would have had their ass handed to them.

Re:Weird ruling

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that this time it had to do with a judge that wasn't a total f'ing tech-dunce. He did his homework, he knew the score, and he called "bullshit". No doubt the bajillion dollars worth of representation on Google's side helped.

If you wore a fancy suit and told my otherwise smart-enough grandmother that the intarwebs pirate rapists were costing you a quintillion dollars a day (with all the professionally printed charts to go with it), and the accused was a soccer mom with an 18 year old law school grad for representation, she'd probably rule in favor of the suit, too.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Code is math, in every and any way you can imagine. Everything that makes it LOOK like it isn't math is deliberate window dressing to allow non-mathematicians to do the math - but that's all it is, smoke and mirrors.
It's still really all just math. The act of programming is really just a more efficient way of counting to a number that suits your purposes.

If you know anything about computational theory you would realize that there isn't a single aspect of programming that is NOT in fact 100% pure maths.
The patent system is perfectly equipped to deal with things that are maths: it must exclude them from patent-ability.
Problem solved.

Re:Weird ruling

[jimicus]

I don't see why not. In very basic terms, a contract has three components:

Offer (I offer to let you use this software I wrote)

Consideration (in exchange for which you will do something eg. Give me money, agree not to copy it and give copies away, agree that if you change the source you must also give the source away)

Acceptance (you agree to these terms)

I'm pretty sure acceptance can be inferred from action; it does not require signing a piece of paper. The only difficulty I see is that the contract isn't revealed until after you buy the item, which generally you can't return. I don't know how this would pan out in the real world.

Usual IANAL caveats apply.

Re:Weird ruling

[rolfwind]

Remember, this is the same legal environment that packed the DOJ with ex-RIAA attorneys.

Um, Obama and Biden did that. Not the "legal environment."

I'm not a fan of the republicans either, who pack the DoJ with guys with other agendas, but the first step is to assign responsibility to the correct parties here.

Re:Weird ruling

[EuclideanSilence]

Everything in the universe "is math". Do you think that levers and springs aren't math? They can be defined in terms of the axioms of physics and analyzed mathematically. A rotary engine is just as much "is math" as a software program. Can you not create a software simulator to predict the behavior of a rotary engine? The only difference is that software is easier mathematics in terms of current human capabilities.

If you tried to exclude things that were mathematically definable from the patent system, you'd have to exclude everything in the known universe. Judges who point out that excluding software from patents is inappropriate are actually correct.

If you want to have a patent system (and that's a significant condition), then you have to decide what it's purpose is. Patents are a poor tool for the purpose of subsidizing and promoting research. But if the purpose is to actually promote disclosure of ideas, then the patent system needs to be changed in no small way. To prevent obvious ideas from being patented, you'd have to have a system where working models of the invention are created, and only those that can't be figured out in a timely fashion are given patents. The patent office would have to apply for a patent with the inventor, rather than the inventor applying for a patent with the office.

This would also fix the issue of duration of patents. The duration becomes a function of the negotiation between the patent office and the inventor based on when the model is likely to be figured out.

Software is actually one of the few things that should be patentable. An algorithm with a network interface can be very difficult to figure out. Software is one of the few things that can actually be shown to work, and yet not disclose how they work. Drugs can be chemically analyzed and engines can be taken apart. But google and watson can exist for years without anyone figuring out how they work.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

There is a huge difference between "can be described mathematically" and "actually IS a mathematical formula".
Every computer program ever written IS a mathematical formula. It's not something that can be DESCRIBED by a mathematical formula (which is what you're talking about) - it is the formula ITSELF.

That's what programs are. You have fallen for the smoke and mirrors.

Re:Weird ruling

[UnknowingFool]

So, yes, I am pretty sure the case wasn't about copyright, patents or anything remotely associated with suing someone for making a product in the same shape as yours.

A violation of EULA is not mutually exclusive of violating a copyright which the judge summarily ruled that Psystar did both. Perhaps you should read the opinion more closely.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

Pinch-to-Zoom was invented at a public university on public funding and therefore it ought to belong to The People.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

the first step is to assign responsibility to the correct parties here.

The dems and the reps are united in fucking us. While the dems are in power they make one kind of appointment that fucks us. While the reps are in power they make another kind of appointment that fucks us. This provides them the opportunity to claim that they are different when in reality it's the left and right hands of the same body. Don't make the mistake of thinking these are decisions that Obama is making. He's been told what to do.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

Also, it wasn't against Oracle's objections. You've got to remember that Oracle didn't even own Java at the time Google cloned it. Sun owned it and Sun had no problems with Google cloning it. So it's not like Oracle can even claim it was a victim in all of this, it wasn't.

Well, just saying for a second that Oracle is a victim, they're a victim of Sun's incompetence. Of course, that's not how the story goes; Java would be nothing today if not for openness.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

Not according to the judge. Psystar lost both on copyright and DMCA counts.

Yes, that was the case where First Sale law breathed its last. Congratulations, you don't actually own anything in this country any more except any registered copyrights.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

EULA is a contract. It draws its legals base from an agreement between the parts involved.

A EULA is a contract which conflicts directly with First Sale law, and thus ought to be legally invalid. That it is not only serves to further underline the extent to which the legal system is corrupt. It is a meaningless contract as it does not grant me anything; I (supposedly) gained the legal right to run the program code and in fact to do anything that does not conflict with copyright law (which includes making copies for my own personal use, such as when I execute the code) and the EULA is only trying to deny me my rights (again, those guaranteed under First Sale law) and offers me nothing in return. How is it even considered to be a valid contract?

Re:Weird ruling

[iive]

Buying something IS a contract! At it's most basic level it is an agreement to exchange physical items or services.

Buying is indeed a contract. However is EULA part of that contract or is it another contract on its own?

For EULA to be part of the buying contract, it must be presented before entering into the contract. That is, EULA must be presented before paying. Otherwise both parties are not on equal ground. (Or you should also be able to amend the buying contract with whatever your imagination could spawn).

If EULA is separate contract, then rejecting it must not void your original contract. This means, I should still be able to use the product I've paid for. Otherwise both parties are not on equal ground as one of them pays money and doesn't get anything in return.

Re:Weird ruling

[Bigby]

I think the problem with a EULA is that it is typically a contract offer after the original contract is complete. You don't see the EULA until you install/run the application or at least open the box.

Re:Weird ruling

[samjam]

This is why I laugh at small print which says "This DVD was sold subject to the condition that..." because it very well wasn't!

Re:Weird ruling

[Zordak]

Troll? No. Misguided? Yeah. You may not agree with judges' rulings (I often don't). But I've never seen a U.S. federal judge who really gives a flip where your company's headquarters are. Federal judges are usually too aloof for that kind of favoritism. They're appointed for life, and it is literally unconstitutional to fire them or reduce their pay. They don't have to kowtow to anybody. They are more free to do whatever they think is right than anybody else in any other job.

An elected state court judge, on the other hand, who has to fight for his seat every couple of years---yeah, he's more vulnerable to "home team" bias. But he also doesn't have any jurisdiction over patent cases.

Re:Weird ruling

[garyebickford]

I suppose it's worth noting that back in the days of the original Mac, the rounded rectangles for windows on the screen were completely new. In fact this generated a big argument between Steve Jobs and the head designer, whose name I forget just now. The designer said, "WTF do we need rounded corners on the windows - nobody does that", and Jobs took him outside to look at all the road signs and other uses. And he insisted. So Macs had rounded rectangles. This really was the first time any window-based OS (there were a few by then - I worked on one workstation called the Perq) had rounded rectangles.

So rounded rectangles were actually a new design concept at least for computer software in 1984. But Apple should have patented it then, in which case the patent would have run out long ago. Extending the concept to the physical device was arguably not a brilliant invention - most human-rated devices have rounded corners, for the practical reasons you mention. So I agree with your last statement - rounded rectangles as a device design are either old news, or trivial, or both. But I dunno what the actual patent says, this being /. and all.

Re:Weird ruling

[fredprado]

I may be wrong, but as far as I understand DCMA only covers copy protection. All the jailbrake/root available would be illegal otherwise, and it is not: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

First Sale is alive and well in the USA. That case was not about First Sale, despite Psystar's attempt to claim otherwise.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

Incorrect, in exactly the same way that all of the engineering that went into designing physical product X means that the product is simply the mathematical formula. Both involve math, but they are NOT math.

Re:Weird ruling

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Remove the logos and brandnames from most laptops and I bet the same sort of lawyers won't be able to tell which laptop was made by which manufacturer.

Uh, yeah, this sounds really compelling until you stop and think about it, then realize that their job was to prove that Samsung's product was distinct.

Your argument is invalid, sorry.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Incorrect in that the product X is not a a mathematical formula. A computer program is a mathematical formula. All of them. No exceptions.

What is a computer program ? It is a mathematical formula. If you don't know that then you don't know how computers WORK. A computer program is the same thing as: 2+2=4
It's just a much more complicated one, but that's what a computer program is - it's what every computer program is.
In fact, it gets better, if you know computational theory then you know that a mathematical formula (any of them) is also a number. A computer program is just a very big number.

Can you patent 5 ? How about if you write in binary - can you patent 101 ?
So why the hell can you patent it if you just stick on a bunch more 1s and 0s ? Even scripting languages are ultimately just that: a number. It's just the timing of the translation that's changed.

A computer program is a number.

A car-part is not a number. There are maths involved in designing it, but it isn't itself maths.

There's maths involved in adding 2 and 2 together to get 4 - but 4 is still maths. A computer program is like 4, it's not like the car part.

Anybody who tells you different doesn't know how computers work.

http://silentcoder.co.za/2010/08/why-computer-programs-should-not-be-patentable-in-easy-to-understand-terms/

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

Neither one is the mathematical formula. The program is the embodiment of much more than just math.

Re:Weird ruling

[UnknowingFool]

Congrats, you've shown that you don't understand the dfference between First Sale and Fair Use. First Sale allows you to resell something as-is and unmodified. Fair Use allows you to modify something you bought. However copyright specifically says modifying and redistributing requires the permission of the copyright holder. Did Psystar modify OS X? Yes. Did Psystar redistribute their version? Yes. It doesn't matter that they include an umodified version. That doesn't solve the problem that they violated copyright in the first place.

If you took your neighbor's car for a weekend without permission it's theft. It doesn't matter that you left a car for them to use.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

No, it really isn't. It's not an embodiment of anything. Only physical objects can embody something... this as bad as people who misuse "literally" when they mean "figuratively".

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

If software isn't the embodiment of anything, then it's not eligible for copyright either. Ergo, you are incorrect.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Or you need to get a fricking dictionary and look up what the world "embodiment" means.

A physical thing can embody a non-physical thing, it cannot happen the other way around and the idea of one non-physical thing embodying another non-physical thing is a sentence without any sense. It has no meaning. It's basically gibberish.

Copyright covers the EXPRESSION of an idea, nobody said it had to be a physical expression. Expression and embodiment are not synonyms - in fact they are practically antonyms.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

Or you need to admit that you're technically correct, and legally wrong.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

Congrats, you've shown that you don't understand the dfference between First Sale and Fair Use.

Uh no. First Sale says that if I buy something then I can do anything I want to it and then resell it. And what Psystar claimed is that they paid for these licenses, and therefore if they wanted to modify OSX and give it away, they were entitled to do that. That's about First Sale law, not about Fair Use. Thanks for playing, though...

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

It's the law that is wrong here, that's sort of the point. The law is supposed to reflect the reality, not dictate it.
The law prohibits the patenting of maths.
The law allows the patenting of software.
Software IS maths.
So the law is self-contradictory. Because although software is maths, it doesn't LOOK like maths, in fact we've spent many decades doing all in our power to make look less like maths - going back all the way to Grace Hopper.
But that was just presentation, we didn't change what software is, only how it looks. In the same way that a fractal map is mathematics - is a mathematical formula, but doesn't look like, but you can write it out in the original formula that does.

If you're going to argue that the fractal map is really a picture of what the formula represents then I can argue that so is the written formula- mathematics is abstract, how you represent it is not actually important and does not change what it is.

But the law got tricked by the appearance, so the law is wrong, and thus the law ought to change. It's an understandable mistake -the appearance is deceptive, deliberately so - thousands of very smart people have spent decades working on the deception because it makes the maths easier to do - but it's still maths and the law is still wrong.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

The law is correct, you are incorrect. Software is NOT just math. You can argue until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the facts.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Go study computational theory. I'm right, you're wrong, and shouting won't make you less wrong.

You sir, are an idiot, and I won't waste my time replying to you further. Clearly, you fell for the presentation too.
Or you have a vested interest of some sort, or some other reason for the biggest case of cognitive dissonance outside the catholic church I've ever seen.

Either way, talking to you is a waste of time.

I'll just leave you with this. Probably 90% of the algorythms that programmers use every day was created by Donald Knuth. Nobody knows more about the nuts and bolts of software development than he does, hell he created most of the damn nuts and a good chunk of the bolts to. Donald Knuth also knows that software is maths and have testified to that effect in court.
You cannot get a more expert witness. There isn't one. The only people who could possibly claim to be more experts on software than Knuth are all dead, on the other hand they are also - all of them - people who knew that software was maths, hell most of them were mathematicians.
In the end - a computer is nothing - yes NOTHING more than a universal Turing machine, and guess what. Turing machines are MATHS.

Re:Weird ruling

[UnknowingFool]

Uh no. First Sale says that if I buy something then I can do anything I want to it and then resell it. And what Psystar claimed is that they paid for these licenses, and therefore if they wanted to modify OSX and give it away, they were entitled to do that. That's about First Sale law, not about Fair Use. Thanks for playing, though...

Please show me anywhere in the First Sale doctrine that allows you to modify and resell. Anywhere. In the context of modification, that is covered by 17 USC 117b

Lease, sale, or other transfer of additional copy or adaptation. Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.

This was covered in the judge's ruling had you bothered to read it. Pystar can give away unopened boxes of OS X; that was immaterial to the case. Their copies that were modified to run on PCs was copyright infringment. Unless you think you know more about copyright law than the judge.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

No need for the name calling. And I didn't fall for anything, I developed my theory independently, just as I have developed hundreds of algorithms independently. Some are simply mathematical, some are not.

I'm quite familial with Knuth. And I'll be happy to debate the issue with him.

Take for example, lossy compression. These algorithms are not just math. If they were, they would always produce the same output from the same input. The don't. They embody many "judgement" calls about what can be skipped with minimal visual or audible notice. They embody psycho-visual and psycho-acoustic theories that have nothing to do with math. The compress a given item differently depending upon many factors that have no correlation to the input stream, including desired output size, previous audio/video frames, latency, buffer sizes, computer speed, and many other factors that have nothing to do with math. What mathematical algorithm describes how much audio or video data you can remove from a given stream while maintaining X level of quality? No matter how hard you try, you can not define that with math alone.

The law is correct. Software is more than just math, it is copyrightable, and some of it is patentable.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

And all of them, are still maths. If they were anything else - then they wouldn't be able to execute on a CPU.

They are very well disguised as other things - but that's all it is, disguises.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

You have made the same mistake many other have made. You're looking the end product and saying the equivalent of "it's just a hunk of metal with some engineering (e.g. math) applied". It's not the end product that a patent protects, if it were, reverse engineering and independent invention would not be a patent violation. It's the idea/theory/process embodied by it that is patented, and the same apples to some software, no matter what the end product looks like, if it used the patented method/process/idea, it's protected. Software is simply one type of end product using that method/process/idea.

Re:Weird ruling

[drinkypoo]

Their copies that were modified to run on PCs was copyright infringment. Unless you think you know more about copyright law than the judge.

No, I agree with the Judge's interpretation of the way in which copyright law shits on first sale law.

Re:Weird ruling

[UnknowingFool]

First sale doctrine was never designed to trump copyrights. You can sell a book after you buy it. You can't modify and republish it no matter how much you hated the ending. If we had that right, Star Wars I-III would be fixed. That is what Psystar did. If they sold unmodified PCs with unopened OS X boxes and instructions on how to install OS X, it would have been a different case.

Re:Weird ruling

[Lunzo]

Those rounded corners rulings have eventually been overturned pretty much everywhere. The only problem for Apple's competitors in those cases is that until the ruling is overturned they're losing sales to Apple.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Software isn't invented, it's discovered. More-over I am not in fact looking at the end product alone. I am saying that if this end product runs on a computer that tells me something ABOUT the idea- it tells me the idea is mathematics, because absolutely nothing that isn't mathematics can run on a computer.

Patenting a programming idea is no different from patenting a faster process by which to do multiplication in your head. Indeed any and all programs ever written CAN be executed in your head - it takes a great memory and it's very difficult to do with a complex program, but every programmer runs every algorythm in his head as he writes it.
Of course, you can mentally utilize physical inventions as well (by imagining how they'll work), but the difference is - that you cannot then turn them into something a computer will run (at best a computer can draw a similar picture).
But if a computer is capable of running it, then it is mathematics and nothing more - because nothing else CAN run on computers.
A computer is just a universal Turing machine. Universal Turing machines PREDATE computers - but prior to them they were only done as a thought experiment. You could do one made up of people and typewriters though - that's how the first one was designed to work,
In that method it's not really practically useful for anything -but it could indeed run any computer algorithm we use today. Their invention didn't even intend to be used as the basis of a real thing, they were invented as a way to study mathematics at it's basic foundational levels.
Computers just used the same concept to create a tool that could do mathematics automatically.

That is still what they are and what they do.

So the end product isn't fooling us the way you think. We have an attribute of what you're trying to patent - it can be executed by a computer, and from that we can determine with absolute accuracy that it must be a purely mathematical process. That is not patentable.

Having said that, I have extreme doubt about whether anything at all is invented, I tend to think that it's *all* just discovered, with maybe one or two odd exceptions in a millennium. So I don't actually think a patent system is very justifiable at all. But I am prepared to at least accept the possibility that in many cases a patent system can be beneficial (or at least, more beneficial than harmful to society) - it is also a fact that software is simply not one of those cases.

Re:Weird ruling

[DMUTPeregrine]

Bill Gosper is still alive. He's what, 68, 69 now? Knuth is probably more expert, but Gosper helped him write part of TAOCP.
John Conway is also alive. He's not as well known as a programmer, so I'd not say he's quite as good an expert witness, but he's another one who can very clearly describe how all software is math.

Otherwise you're correct. And I doubt either of them would claim to be more expert than Knuth.

Re:Weird ruling

[hellop2]

Nice claim. Exactly how is a computer program a mathematical formula? It's more accurately described as a binary string which can be interpreted by a turing compatible machine.

Re:Weird ruling

[silentcoder]

Then you don't know what a mathematical formula, is, what a Turing machine is, or what a program is.

Hint: all three are different forms of the same thing.

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20091110152507492

http://silentcoder.co.za/2010/08/why-computer-programs-should-not-be-patentable-in-easy-to-understand-terms/

Among those things: a simple, testable proof of my claim. Unless you can refute my proof with evidence, I win.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

Software isn't invented, it's discovered.

Incorrect. The example I gave, "lossy compression" is not discovered, it's 100% invented.

More-over I am not in fact looking at the end product alone. I am saying that if this end product runs on a computer that tells me something ABOUT the idea- it tells me the idea is mathematics, because absolutely nothing that isn't mathematics can run on a computer.

Incorrect again. What you're seeing is that someone has figured out a way to represent, approximate, or control some model of the idea using logical operators. That doesn't mean the idea itself is logic or math. Everything can be represented, approximated, or controlled using math and logic. That doesn't mean the thing itself is math or logic."

So the end product isn't fooling us the way you think. We have an attribute of what you're trying to patent - it can be executed by a computer, and from that we can determine with absolute accuracy that it must be a purely mathematical process. That is not patentable.

No, you're still confusing the idea, or method with its implementation. You ARE confusing the end product (the program) with the patentable idea, of which the program is simply one representation, approximation, or a controller.

Re:Weird ruling

[gstrickler]

A little expansion on my answer. A mathematical model of something is not the thing itself. Newton's law of gravity describes gravity mathematically, but it is not gravity. We can describe music mathematically, but the math isn't music. Mathematical models are simply models representing an idea, they are not the idea itself. Just because something can be described with a mathematical model, doesn't mean the idea or thing itself is just math. That's what you and everyone else who says that software is just math and therefore, not eligible for patent protection is missing. The ideas that the software represents may not be "just math", and some of those are eligible for patent protection, even if the only implementation of those ideas is in software.

Re:Weird ruling

[jonwil]

Apple doesn't make their own hardware but the parts they use (motherboards specifically) are specific to Apple machines and can't be bought from Intel directly.

Re:Weird ruling

[Trogre]

I don't know if you're correct or not, but your post does nothing to support your point, rather it makes you sound a lot like the Time Cube guy.

Simpsons did it

[Anonymous Coward]

In Bart Gets Hit By A Car

      Burns: I'm going to write a figure on this piece of paper. It's not quite
                    as large as the last one, but I think you'll find it fair.
                    [draws a giant zero]
      Hutz: I think we should take it.

A positive spin, according to expert Mueller

[bogaboga]

It's incredible that expert Mueller still puts a positive spin on the case...from predicting "triple damages" to Oracle, to what he termed as the "smoking gun Lindholm email", to the general disdain of anything not sanctioned by his cronies.

When one visits his blog, you cannot fail to see the little coverage he accords news unfavorable to those who bankroll him.

Re:A positive spin, according to expert Mueller

[grouchomarxist]

If it is triple of $0, I think Google can afford it.

Re:A positive spin, according to expert Mueller

[MrSenile]

I blame the phone network for the issue.

It was obvious from the start that when Oracle called Google and demanded 1 with a billion zero's at the end for a settlement, that the phone cut off momentarily on the '1'.

Google came through on their end. They gave Oracle plenty of zero's.

Out of curiosity...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Would there be a risk of being considered in contempt of court if one were to write a gigantic novelty check for the value of $Zero, sign it with a flourish, and hand it to the opposing counsel?

Re:Out of curiosity...

[mug funky]

it would be worth it.

Obligatory: I don't think anyone will find Oracle

[Crashmarik]

Appealing

Re:Oracle new business plan

[jonwil]

Oracle wont be going out of business anytime soon, too many people use their database products and middle-ware for that to happen.

I think I know how this went down

[ddd0004]

Google: I'm going to write a figure on this piece of paper. It's not quite as large as the last one, but I think you'll find it fair.
Oracle's Lawyers: I think we should take it.

Re:Bad Article

[mug funky]

it started on patents. when bullshit was called, it moved to copyright infringement of the headers.

that's the big problem - to not use a car analogy, think of a program as like a giant recipe. the code is the method, the headers are the ingredients list. Oracle wanted to assert imaginary copyright on the lists of ingredients for Java.

i use the food analogy because food recipes are not copyrightable. you can steal all the recipes from all the cookbooks and publish them yourself and be perfectly fine, so long as you don't copy the photos or pontificating between recipes.

also note that cookbooks sell very very well in spite of this.

You dropped some zeroes there

[Sarusa]

Corporate lawsuits never involve such small numbers.

I believe you meant $00,000,000

Re:You dropped some zeroes there

[bussdriver]

Why can't judges in these cases immediately rule "I pass" since we know they will always appeal and bribe things as far as possible.

Actually, I think in such cases the cost to tax payers should be paid for doing the appeal, or even the lawsuit itself (regardless of outcome.) I doubt it would amount to much of the legal expenses since their lawyers are way more expensive than use of the court room and judge's time. Why should tax payers fund these guys abusing our system? Its not like they actually pay their corporate taxes (even so, a corporation who sues a lot should pay a lot just like trucking services pay more road tax due to their increased wear on our roads.)

Re:You dropped some zeroes there

[multi io]

Corporate lawsuits never involve such small numbers.

I believe you meant $00,000,000

...plus 7% sales tax.

Re:You dropped some zeroes there

[Bigby]

And remember to report it as corporate income/profit

Obligatory.

[sensationull]

Alright, who has Oracle's big pile of nothing... :)

Re:Bad Article

[mug funky]

extending the analogy, i suppose Oracle could assert copyright on the comments in the code. the only problem there is they'd almost certainly not be the same unless google had access to Sun's source tree back in the day.

Like?

[Alter_3d]

Google is given 14 days to file an application for Oracle to pay legal fees to Google

Dammit... where is Slashdot's "like" button??

Re:Bad Article

[Warhawke]

Note that recipes can be patented, however, so long as the recipe does something particularly novel and non-obvious. Like tomato beer, or salsa without spicy chili peppers. Software patents are kind of dumb, though, because it's awfully hard to think of a series of programming lines as non-obvious.

laymen...

[Anonymous Coward]

This clearly show that the court is manned by laymen... they should have made the decision that the ammount should be null, not zero.

Re:laymen...

[SplashMyBandit]

Maybe they had a not null constraint on that (Oracle :)) database table, so zero was the correct token to use.

Seriously though, awarding Oracle zero damages is not the same as not awarding them damages at all. This recognizes that Oracle was "right" in the case, even if no material damage is caused. I would have preferred that the result be that Google was not liable for damages at all (even the nominal sum of zero - but I haven't read the legal summary, I could well be wrong and that is what the judgement actually means).

Re:laymen...

[CoolGopher]

And while they're at it, they should declare software patents NULL and void too... though I'm not sure what compiler would accept such a mix of value and type.

Re:laymen...

[CoolGopher]

Declaring something void is certainly possible, at least when that something is the return type of a function. However, declaring something NULL would imply it having the type NULL, and in C NULL is a value, not a type.

Of course, in SQL you could say that you're declaring a column NULL (capable), but there you don't have "void".

Re:laymen...

[CoolGopher]

Bzzzt! That's not declaring software_patents NULL and void, that's declaring NULL to be a substitution macro for a void pointer of value zero. :)

Re:laymen...

[Shoe Puppet]

#define software_patents NULL
#define software_patents void

Hey, nobody said anything about "at the same time"!

It couldn't happen to nicer people

[davydagger]

I hope this becomes precedent for dealing with patent trolls.

I COULD be mistaken, but didn't sun open source java before oracle bought them. If so, wouldn't it invalidate the claim, as google would have a prior license.

Re:It couldn't happen to nicer people

[udoschuermann]

Yes, Java was made Free (GPL2) by Sun before Oracle bought Sun, but Google wrote the Dalvik VM completely from scratch. Once Oracle's case was unraveling pre-trial, they were basically down to screaming that Google copied the package organization and method signatures. Basically, Oracle claimed that they owned the copyright on "int min(int,int)" and "int max(int,int)" and a bunch of other methods, i.e. they claimed that the Java APIs were copyrighted, implying that all APIs are copyrighted.

If there hadn't been so much at stake, it would have been a knee slapper from the start. It's turned into a face slapper, instead.

Re:Bad Article

[oxdas]

It was a two part trial. One part was on copyright infringement and the other part was on patent infringement. The outcome was that Google violated Oracle copyrights on 9 lines of code (out of 15 million) and some test cases. Google was not found to have infringed on any Oracle patents. The judge decided that the damages amounted to $0 for the copyright violations. Oracle can appeal.

New Headquarters

[dutchwhizzman]

So will the new Oracle headquarters be inside the vulcano on Lanai? Next thing you know, he'll be putting lasers on the moon.

Re:New Headquarters

[Anonymous Coward]

So will the new Oracle headquarters be inside the vulcano on Lanai? Next thing you know, he'll be putting lasers on the moon.

Or on his sharks. Maybe even make: LAWYER SHARKS WITH FREAKING LAZERS ATTACHED TO THEIR HEAD! Let's see a judge deny him his monies then.

Re:New Headquarters

[Sulphur]

So will the new Oracle headquarters be inside the vulcano on Lanai? Next thing you know, he'll be putting lasers on the moon.

Not yet, but there are arrays of corner reflectors on the moon if you want to try out yours.

Re:New Headquarters

[Bloody Bastard]

Aren't lawyers already sharks? Only missing the lasers though.

Narcisissm

[dutchwhizzman]

Narcisissm makes that Oracle will find themselves appealing?

Re:Bad Article

[SplashMyBandit]

The Java Development Kit has always come with source code, apart from a few binary blobs. This was even before OpenJDK. It is one of the beauties of Java, the source was pretty much always available, which was a big help in diagnosing your own bugs (looking at the class library source was very illustrative in how you were supposed to use the libraries). Furthermore, the author of the code that Oracle challenged Google on basically gave the code he had given to Sun to Google as well. Oracle's legal team were incredibly stupid in the way they proceeded - but I guys lawyers at that level are so used to being right they forget they need to check their facts in case they are wrong (and very many techies are smarter than lawyers - we don't charge much because we love what we do, unlike many lawyers).

Oracle wanted $6Billion -- Judge chopped one digit

[darkonc]

... The leading one. A common enough programming trick .. sometimes a bug.

Hopefully it will never be patented.

Re:Bad Article

[dkf]

Software patents are kind of dumb, though, because it's awfully hard to think of a series of programming lines as non-obvious.

Some software is definitely non-obvious — compression and encryption code are excellent examples — and those are cases where software patents actually make sense. Except that they've been around for long enough that very often the patents will have actually expired...

Re:Oracle new business plan

[ledow]

People said similar things about SCO at one point.

Re:Bad Article

[naich]

Just mixing unusual ingredients wouldn't be enough for a patent though. You would have to come up with some new process of cooking, like freeze drying or liquid nitrogen baths or infusing the food with liquid oxygen and lighting it at the customer's table so it cooks in a few milliseconds and spreads itself around the room a bit.

Ztimulated?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Laser" is a fucking acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation"

Until "Ztimulated" is a word, stop throwing a "z" in there, you fucking kumquat!

Re:Ztimulated?

[RivenAleem]

At the same time we should do away with the common misconception that they go "PEW PEW PEW".

Re:Ztimulated?

[clemdoc]

At the same time we should do away with the common misconception that they go "PEW PEW PEW".

while in reality, they go "FOO FOO FOO" and the people they hit go "BAR BAR BAR".

Re:Ztimulated?

[HappyHead]

Until "Ztimulated" is a word, stop throwing a "z" in there, you fucking kumquat!

Sounds like something that would have been in a '90s Zima commercial. "Zima... Zo Ztimulating..." (Man that makes me feel old...)

Patents versus copyright confusion

[thue]

The linked article makes the claim that Oracle was suing for API patents. But AFAIK, Oracle was suing for API copyright. The article author probably has no idea what he is talking about.

Re:Patents versus copyright confusion

[CrimsonAvenger]

Oracle was also suing over the use of two patents.

The jury ruled that no patent infringement occurred.

Then the judge ruled that APIs weren't copyrightable.

Which left Oracle with only the jury's ruling that the Rangecheck() function was used in violation of copyright.

Which was what the $0 award was for - Google's use of rangecheck....

So what are you buying on the software?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are you buying on the software if not to use the software? If nothing, then P2P sharing is legal since nothing of value is shared. If "the code, but not the right to use it", then it's a post-sale restriction with no consideration made.

EULAs are not legally enforcable. It's why so many games are going online-only (even if they have a Single Player mode) because a ToS *is* legally enforcable.

Blizzard LOST their case against BnetD using their EULA. They won their case using the ToS.

Because the EULA is not a legal agreement.

Patents versus copyright

[thue]

The article says the suit was about whether the APIs could be patented. That is not so - the suit was about whether the APIs could be copyrighted. The article author probably has no idea what he is talking about.

It isn't now.

[Kupfernigk]

Island soon to be covered in condos rented to Oracle's many, many lawyers so they can recover in comfort from the shock of a judge explaining to them that their client's suit had no merit. Not nice. Before long when Ellison picks up the phone to his lawyers they'll be out working on more important cases - contested parking tickets, for instance. Going to court with zilch case may be the fault of the client, but it still won't look good on his lawyers' CVs.

Early Birthday Present

[fsterman]

There is no better gift than Oracle spending millions to shut down innovation only to shaft themselves out of the $150,000 Google was going to pay them for 9 lines of code.

Wasn't the Judge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. The judge did no such thing.

Oracle was entitled to statutory damages, which give damages within a specified range with some discretion by the judge. The PARTIES, and NOT THE JUDGE stipulated to setting the award at $0. Basically, they told the judge not to bother - they agreed $0 was fine.

If you're wondering why Oracle agreed to $0 damages, when they could have had "more than $0," it was probably for two reasons. First, the amount they were likely to be awarded was chump change - in the hundreds to low thousands of dollars. Not worth the time it would take a lawyer to brief on it. Second, setting the damages now without waiting for the judge allows the final judgement to be entered, which is a necessary step for Oracle to fine an appeal, which they inevitably will.

If they litigate this til the end of time

[hey!]

Oracle will clean up on compound interest.

Copy & Paste Software Industry

[esarjeant]

I'm a little confused on this one. There were quite a few articles outlining the original claims, including Groklaw, and exhibits showed source code had clearly been copied and pasted. In one example (PolicyNodeImpl.java), the private member variable names were the same!

Is this going to open the floodgates for the commercial software establishment to start copying & pasting open source code into their projects? This could really be a game changer for FOSS, commercial projects will start to copy this source code and GPL will be powerless to stop it. The legal arguments can simply point back to Google v Oracle and say that it's really not a problem to have a line-by-line source code match.

While I think Oracle was seeking an unreasonable amount in damages, it would have been better if Google had been forced to pay something to license these API's and to compensate for the source code they copied.

Re:Copy & Paste Software Industry

[Anonymous Coward]

The trial established a few files had been copied by an unscrupulous Google contractor (18 iirc compared to the thousands being on trial), but none of them ever made it in Android proper, they were all only used for tests only. For a project of this scope it is quite impressive there was so little to be found.

Since there was no way Oracle could peg huge damages on test files that never ended up on any released product its lawyers decided to forget them for the time (something like "if we get damages for something else we'll add those files to the amount, otherwise we'll pass").

(and actually the judge had to reverse the jury on this point since the jury decided no infringement at all occurred and the judge had to point out that even if it was tiny and trivial, it did happen. And then he warned Oracle lawyers not to make a mountain of it, and they took the hint – the jury had already decided it though nothing of it)

Of course Oracle did try to make a mountain of those files in the press and I see they succeeded with you. Not so much before the actual jury and judge.

Re:Copy & Paste Software Industry

[flonker]

Which lines and how many lines were infringing is a question of fact, and as such, it is up to the jury to decide the matter. No precedent is set in that regard, as each case is entirely different. Therefore, this isn't going to "open the floodgates" or be a "game changer" or really have any effect at all on the industry or FLOSS community. Also, Oracle did not present any evidence regarding actual damages. Then rather than asking for statutory damages, they asked for actual damages. This, obviously, did not work too well. (Not to mention, the percentage of code that was infringing out of the entire codebase was minuscule, so damages would be hard to prove.)

OTOH, copyright of an API is a question of law. You are conflating the two issues. APIs should not be copyrightable. Finding that APIs are copyrightable would be disastrous for the industry as a whole. However, as there is no copyright, there is no requirement to license the copyright.

Finally, there was a question of patents. An API can be protected by a patent. In this case, the court found that it was not. Therefore, no damages, and no licensing required.

Re:Bad Article

[Zordak]

Actually, mixing unusual ingredients would be quite enough for a patent as long as it was new and non-obvious. It may be hard to find, because cooking has been around for a really long time. But if you can find a new recipe, you can get a patent on it. (Come to think of it, maybe I should have at least done a patentability search that one time I mixed some curry powder with vanilla ice cream. It was actually quite good if you got it in the right ratio.)

Vocab Nazi strikes again!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

and are in a hurricane zone.

The storm termed a hurricane in the Atlantic is called a cyclone in the Indian ocean and a typhoon in the pacific. So it is not a hurricane zone but a typhoon zone. Zing!

[Karma burning irrelevant piece of trivia brought to you by The Vocab Nazi]

Re:Vocab Nazi strikes again!

[phriedom]

That would be a factoid, rather than trivia, because it is false. The Pacific Ocean has both typhoons and hurricanes. The cyclones that hit Hawaii are usually hurricanes.

Re:Vocab Nazi strikes again!

[Titoxd]

Please turn in your Vocab Nazi card at the nearest Nazi Card Collection Center.

Lanai is located east of the International Date Line, at 20.833333 N, -156.933333 W. The name "typhoon" is reserved for a tropical cyclone in the Northwest Pacific Ocean (i.e. west of the International Date Line). See http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A1.html for more details.

Re:Vocab Nazi strikes again!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Chastised, Vocab Nazi salutes Vocab Fuhrer Titoxd, and slinks away, head hanging in shame. :-(

Google should seriously

[Angrywhiteshoes]

Send Oracle a check for $0, signed by Trollface

Because Java is F/OSS?

[walterbyrd]

Blows my mind that Oracle would even file the lawsuit. It was obviously BS.

Re:Because Java is F/OSS?

[sideslash]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google's Dalvik isn't positioned as being a GPL compliant code base.

Different result because different cases

[walterbyrd]

Comparing this lawsuit to Apple's lawsuits, makes no sense at all. These are completely different types of cases, different issues.

Re:Different result because different cases

[EdIII]

It makes perfect sense when you are only comparing the conflicting interests of the parties involved.

When it comes to judges and the DOJ, they're some clearly conflicting interests. Normally, a judge would recuse himself, but I doubt that happens as often as it should. My experience has even been that some judges won't even allow arguments to proceed, which is clearly corruption.

Would love to see...

[gstrickler]

Google ask for, and be awarded legal costs, as a deterrent to every other similar lawsuit. The money won't really be a big deal to either company, but it would send a message.

Re:Oracle new business plan

[LiENUS]

You know the SCO they said that about is now Oracle right? as in they're still doing business just fine.

Liking Larry?

[Nom du Keyboard]

So does anyone at all like Larry -- besides himself, that is?

Re:Oracle wanted $6Billion -- Judge chopped one di

[Lunzo]

... The leading one. A common enough programming trick .. sometimes a bug.

Not a bug. The system is working as intended.

Re:Bad Article

[oxdas]

You are correct. I read the transcript on Groklaw a little too quickly I think. A more thorough read and it now appears as if the statutory damages will be addressed if the case survives appeal. Am I a little too lazy to look up section 2 of their existing stipulation, so I may be wrong again. Feel free to correct.

Oracle: Defer statutory damages until resolution. Parties agree that we need to address statutory damages. Agree to an amount to reach finality. If the case returns to court on appeal...

Judge: Is there any way that the statutory damages could come back to life, or is that gone forever?

0racle: This is governed by section 2 of the existing stipulation.

Happy to see the corrections, hope they get modded up.

Re:Bad Article

[mug funky]

serious? the rules for patentability are that lax?

btw, there's prior art on the ice cream thing. curry powder is a mixture of spices that have all been mixed with various dairy at various temperatures before. chili ice cream is quite popular, and turmeric is a very popular natural yellow colour in all manner of foods (it tastes quite floral, so it's compatibile with sweets, and it's not derived from coal tar which is a bonus). cumin might be difficult to find in ice cream, but it's not unheard of in yoghurt in indian cooking, and quite common with sour cream in mexican. coriander seed is used in pretty much everything.

Re:Bad Article

[mug funky]

car is the code, road map is the headers.

Re:Bad Article

[Zordak]

How is "new and non-obvious" lax? New means nobody has ever done it before. Non-obvious means that a person having ordinary skill in the art would not be expected to think of it. That's a pretty definition for "invention."