Oracle Seeks $9.3 Billion For Google's Use Of Java In Android (computerworld.com)

angry tapir quotes a report from Computerworld: Oracle is seeking as much as $9.3 billion in damages in a long-running copyright lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android, court filings show. Oracle sued Google six years ago, claiming the search giant needs a license to use parts of the Java platform in Google's market-leading mobile OS. The two companies first went to trial in 2012, but the jury was split on whether or not Google's use of Java was protected by "fair use." Now they're headed back to the courtroom for a new trial scheduled to begin May 9, where Oracle's Larry Ellison and Google's Eric Schmidt will be present. Currently, the sum Oracle is asking for is about 10 times as much as when the two companies went to trial in 2012.

Comments

pure profit

[phantomfive]

That's more than they paid for Sun in total. (Sale price was $7.4 billion).

Re:pure profit

[tnk1]

That's why Sun was actually an investment worth making. They hope to make more off of lawsuits with Sun's IP than they paid for Sun.

Oracle's business model at this point is based off of extracting as much money out of existing customers and through lawsuits as possible. They reached the saturation point in the database market long ago.

Re:pure profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I was part of the Sun buyout. When we went to Oracle one of the support managers told me that sales (that's all sales in Oracle, hardware and software), is just an enabler for the big money, support/license fees...

Re:pure profit

[rahvin112]

I thought it was absurd at the time but go back and read the interviews, it's right there in black and white. Oracle believed it needed a hardware division to counter IBM and HP who could offer complete hardware/software packages. When Oracle purchased sun, hardware was one aspect of their business they didn't have and they were losing support contracts to IBM and HP because of it. Executive management believed that purchasing SUN would give them the missing piece of the puzzle and allow them to more effectively compete.

In today's market it would be insane due to the rise of the cloud and the dramatically lower costs is offers but when Oracle purchased SUN the cloud was in it's infancy and had made very few inroads into enterprise computing.

Strange signal

[lars_boegild_thomsen]

I am fully aware that the law suit is a bit more complex than simply using Java in a product, but I still think that Oracle is sending a weird signals to their existing and potential customers:

"Feel free to use our products for free but if you get successful we will sue you to get a piece of the cake."

I miss Sun!

Re:What about IBM . . . ?

[phantomfive]

The problem wasn't that Google used Java to program (like IBM does), that's fine and free to do. The Java license allows anyone to write code using Java, without any restrictions. The problem also wasn't re-implementing Java (like Apache Harmony): anyone is free to do that under the terms of the GPL.

The problem is that Google re-implemented Java, and tried to release it under different terms than the GPL. Since it is a derivative work, Google needed to follow the terms of the license. Since they tried to release it under BSD (I think that's the license the used), they are now being sued.

The only question remaining is whether their implementation was a fair use or not. My guess is it will be found not to be, but who knows with a jury trial.

Re:What about IBM . . . ?

[shutdown -p now]

For this to be true, APIs must be copyrightable. Which is obvious bullshit, regardless of what the courts may say on the matter.