Oracle Says Trial Wasn't Fair, It Should Have Known About Google Play For Chrome (arstechnica.com)

Two and a half months after a federal jury concluded that Google's Android operating system does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by "fair use," Oracle's attorney says her client missed a crucial detail in the trial, adding that this detail could change everything. ArsTechnica reports: Oracle lawyers argued in federal court today that their copyright trial loss against Google should be thrown out because they were denied key evidence in discovery. Oracle attorney Annette Hurst said that the launch of Google Play on Chrome OS, which happened in the middle of the trial, showed that Google was trying to break into the market for Java SE on desktops. In her view, that move dramatically changes the amount of market harm that Oracle experienced, and the evidence should have been shared with the jury. "This is a game-changer," Hurst told U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who oversaw the trial. "The whole foundation for their case is gone. [Android] isn't 'transformative'; it's on desktops and laptops." Google argued that its use of Java APIs was "fair use" for several reasons, including the fact that Android, which was built for smartphones, didn't compete with Java SE, which is used on desktops and laptops. During the post-trial hearing today, Hurst argued that it's clear that Google intends to use Android smartphones as a "leading wedge" and has plans to "suck in the entire Java SE market. [...] Android is doing this using Java code," said Hurst. "That's outrageous, under copyright law. This verdict is tainted by the jury's inability to hear this evidence. Viewing the smartphone in isolation is a Google-gerrymandered story."In the meanwhile, Google attorney said Oracle was aware of Google's intentions of porting Android to laptops and desktops, and that if Oracle wanted to use this piece of information, it could have.

Comments

Re:Get over it

[Archangel Michael]

Google Play for Chrome, is about porting Android Apps to run as apps under Chrome (think Chromebooks).

IMHO the wheres and the whatfors don't really change anything. Either Google can use their re-engineered APIs or they can't. The court ruled ... they can.

Google obviously could have made Android..

[JMZero]

..without Java, easily, and I'm sure now they wish they had. They've learned their lesson, and everyone should learn the same lesson from this case: "avoid Oracle, avoid Java".

Oracle is a snake that will bite you as soon as it feels hungry or threatened in any way. Java is no longer a free standard with tools that'll bootstrap your project and help you inter-operate, now it's a Trojan horse that could spill open and burn your business, or at very least can be yanked out from under you at any time (if you aren't willing to pay up or hire good lawyers).

Re: So sick of Patent Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're only supposed to care about terrorism, immigrants, and the possibility of losing your job if you complain too loudly.

Shut up and get back to work, citizen.

Re:$23

[BarbaraHudson]

Pretty stupid because Android phones don't run any version of Java, and even if they were going after Java ME's market, there's nothing wrong with going after someone else's market. Agreements not to do so are illegal because they are anti-trust violations. Besides, Java ME was not for the desktop market, that was Java SE.

Now if you want to run Java on, say, a Chromebook, you have to actually install Java, as described here, and it will run Java for linux.

This is just lawyers running the meter.

Java on the desktop?

[Rexdude]

Google was trying to break into the market for Java SE on desktops

What 'market for Java SE on the desktop'? Applets were dead in the water after Flash was launched...some 18-20 years ago. Java has only ever been used to run application servers since then, there is no killer app for the desktop that had people wilfully downloading the JRE in droves. Alternately, I'd love for Oracle to point me to the humungous list of Java based desktop applications that Android is supposedly taking over.