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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#611

Post by monocasa »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #552
wtallis wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The district court found APIs to not be copyrightable. The Federal Circuit disagreed, and ordered the district court to hold a trial under the assumption that APIs are copyrightable—that's when Google's fair use defense became necessary. That Federal Circuit decision has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, does not establish binding precedent outside the context of this case, and is widely seen by outsiders as be…

> That Federal Circuit decision has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, does not establish binding precedent outside the context of this case, The Supreme Court need not weigh in in order to make the law what it is.

The CAFC can't set precedent on this matter.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#612

Post by monocasa »

Oletros wrote: post #573
ABCLAW wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Judges aren't computer scientists, and LOTS of IP cases read very poorly as a result. This is a structural issue with how judges are educated within court rooms regarding the facts surrounding the disputes in question - but let's just accept it as an unfortunate cost to adjudicating the way we do. Regarding your polymorphism point, you've got the cause and effect swapped. The LACK of polymorphism was the basis for…

> 2) There's no need for a separate discussion. I'm not making the argument; it's literally admitted by Google in the context of this case that they straight up copied chunks of code. One function, rangechececk.

Which Alsup publicly admonished Oracle's counsel for trying to make a big deal out of it.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#613

Post by monocasa »

ABCLAW wrote: post #420
phkahler wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did clean room implementation of almost all functions. They copied 9 lines of implementation code verbatim - out of thousands of lines. It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original - I honestly don't know but Google conceded it was a duplicate either way. 9 L…

>It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original They literally admit to having copied it . All the hypotheticals trying to find the end of cleanroom dev in this case keep missing the point: They didn't do cleanroom dev. They admit to not having done it. Their defenses…

Oracle's counsel was publicly admonished by Alsup for even trying to push that argument.

Alsup: "I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument?"

David Boies (counsel for Oracle): "I want to come back to rangeCheck."

Alsup: "rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you're inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it—"

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#614

Post by monocasa »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #547
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a film about Snow White, Pinocchio, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty etc.

Sure. If you managed to actually do that. Of course courts are free to infer as to the unlikelihood of that.

Disney's whole strategy was taking public domain works like those and making cartoon versions.

There's nothing legally stopping you from doing the same; Disney does not own these stories.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#615

Post by doktrin »

ABCLAW wrote: post #420
phkahler wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did clean room implementation of almost all functions. They copied 9 lines of implementation code verbatim - out of thousands of lines. It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original - I honestly don't know but Google conceded it was a duplicate either way. 9 L…

>It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original They literally admit to having copied it . All the hypotheticals trying to find the end of cleanroom dev in this case keep missing the point: They didn't do cleanroom dev. They admit to not having done it. Their defenses…

> So what's the furor about?

Probably about the absurdity of being hit with potentially astronomical penalties for "copying" 9 lines of trivial code that's barely worth hitting ctrl-c for.

Obviously, common sense is - as always - distant from the pedantic nature of law and laywers, but just about anyone sane is gonna look at this and go "well that's just stupid".

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#616

Post by dragonwriter »

doktrin wrote: post #615
ABCLAW wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It does raise a question in my mind as to how that one function got copies, but it's also possible that it was re-implemented and happened to be done exactly the same without looking at the original They literally admit to having copied it . All the hypotheticals trying to find the end of cleanroom dev in this case keep missing the point: They didn't do cleanroom dev. They admit to not having done it. Their defenses…

> So what's the furor about? Probably about the absurdity of being hit with potentially astronomical penalties for "copying" 9 lines of trivial code that's barely worth hitting ctrl-c for. Obviously, common sense is - as always - distant from the pedantic nature of law and laywers, but just about anyone sane is gonna look at this and go "well that's just stupid".

> Probably about the absurdity of being hit with potentially astronomical penalties for "copying" 9 lines of trivial code that's barely worth hitting ctrl-c for.

IIRC, the literal copying of code was something for which the parties stipulated to $0 in damages; the potential liability is about copying the API, not the one trivial 9-line function.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#617

Post by dragonwriter »

wtallis wrote: post #463
DannyBee wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this case, the Federal Circuit Court did what amounted a wholesale second-guessing of what the jury concluded about the facts here." It's worse than that. They are supposed to be applying ninth circuit law, and they roundly haven't throughout the entire appeals. They've made a complete mess of it. First in copyrightability, and now fair use. There are even ninth circuit judges who have spoken out about this.

Can the Ninth Circuit itself petition the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the Federal Circuit from making a hash of Ninth Circuit law?

> Can the Ninth Circuit itself petition the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the Federal Circuit from making a hash of Ninth Circuit law?

Technically, this doesn't have any effect on 9th Circuit law because CAFC decisions applying (and I use that term loosely, here) a particular Circuit’s law do not form new binding precedent for courts in that circuit (or even precedent binding on the CAFC itself in future cases applying the same law.)

But, no, the Ninth Circuit can't intervene that way, though tension between Ninth Circuit precedent and a decision, even if non-binding on other courts, in the CAFC presents an issue similar to a conflict between circuits that would ordinarily seem to weigh in favor of the Supreme Court taking the case on appeal, since avoiding effectively having different systems of federsl law applied to different cases is one reason the Supreme Court exercised it's discretion to hear appeals. It seems certain that Google will appeal this.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#618

Post by TheCoelacanth »

kbutler wrote: post #524
na85 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how a person that only knows about law what they read in the headlines could come to that conclusion, but painting lawyers with a broad brush as you have is no more of a generalization than me saying that every Facebook employee is devoid of morals and ethics.

Which lawyers in what context do you see providing that nuanced human perspective? Corporate law? Their job is keep us from getting sued. Family law? If you're advocating that human perspective for the opposing party, are you failing your duty to your client? Prosecutors? Not sure they have that discretion. General legal services, probate, etc. Doesn't seem that applicable. Intellectual Property? Human perspective? U…

> Family law? If you're advocating that human perspective for the opposing party, are you failing your duty to your client?

They shouldn't be advocating the opposing party's human perspective in court, but they certainly should be doing it privately to the client. Things will usually work out better for them if they can reach an amicable compromise out of court rather than having to engage in protracted legal battles with their own family.

> Prosecutors? Not sure they have that discretion.

Prosecutors absolutely have that discretion. They don't have to take every case to court and they don't have to seek the harshest allowable punishment for every case they do take to court. They are supposed to be serving the public interest, not seeking to imprison as many people as possible.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#619

Post by pjmlp »

monocasa wrote: post #608
pjmlp wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who bought their assets? Sun.

After Android was released. And after the IP assets had been laying around on the market more than two years. Sun buying SavaJe was pretty clearly a response to Android, so it's pretty disingenuous to say that Android killed SavaJe.

Apparently we live in different timelines:

1999 - SavaJe is founded

2006 - Jasper S20 with SavaJe OS gets presented at Java ONE

2006 - End of the year, SavaJe fails to gain another round of investment, in spite of the successful reception at Java ONE

2007 - April, Sun public announcement to buy SavaJe assets

2007 - November, Open Handset Alliance is created

2008 - November, HTC Dream gets released as the very first Android device. The initial architecture diagrams have a certain resemblance with SavaJe ones.

The OS that came to be Android started in 2003, was initially based in JavaScript, had lots of time to inspire on Java stacks after they pivoted to Java and were eventually bought by Google.

Only after SavaJe was no longer around, it became public what Google was up to regarding their mobile OS strategy.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#620

Post by pjmlp »

carussell wrote: post #331
pjmlp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that wasn't the only approach available. There are OEMs selling commercial JDKs for embedded use, with their own VM, JIT and AOT compiler variations, and library extensions. Contrary to Google, they always played by the rules.

The whole subthread focusing on the Android VM is completely irrelevant. The entire argument at this point has to do with the inclusion of the Java APIs. Not even Oracle or the appeals court are harping on Google's custom VM.

The VM is used as an excuse by Google supporters why they should get excused to help drive Sun into the floor.

Java still exists today thanks Oracle, not Google.

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