An interesting turn. The jury isn't able to come up with a decision on copyrights, but Judge Alsup would like to get a partial verdict rather than completely start over.
The jury, unable to render a verdict on one of the most important three questions they were tasked with, has gone home for the weekend. There's some shred of hope that they can come to an agreement Monday morning, but in any case Judge Alsup is not going to delay the patent portion of the suit. That's still expected to begin on Monday.
There's a possibility that the Judge may ask for a partial verdict on the points the jury was able to agree on if they can't move forward on Monday. Beyond that he has also signaled an issue with the copyrightability of API's, at the forefront of the copyright legal proceedings. (The trial is split into three parts: copyright phase, patents, and then damages if warranted). The counsels have until the middle of this month to submit pleadings on the EU High Courts determination that copyrights on API's aren't permissible. Keep in mind that Judge Alsup gave notice that he would determine the copyright-ability, not the jury.
Nothing of importance expected before Monday morning.
EDIT: My apology for not writing what those three "most important" questions are:
A. Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works?
Yes __________ No __________
(IF YOU ANSWER “NO” TO QUESTION 1A, THEN SKIP TO QUESTION NO. 2.)
B. Has Google proven that its use of the overall structure, sequence and organization constituted “fair use”?
Yes __________ No __________
Second question:
2. As to the documentation for the 37 Java API packages in question taken as a group: A. Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed?<p>
Yes __________ No __________
(IF YOU ANSWER “NO” TO QUESTION 2A, THEN SKIP TO QUESTION NO. 3.)
B. Has Google proven that its use of Oracle’s Java documentation constituted “fair use”?
Yes __________ No __________
And the third question:
3. Has Oracle proven that Google’s conceded use of the following was infringing, the only issue being whether such use was de minimis:
(Infringing) (Not Infringing)
A.The rangeCheck method in TimSort.java and ComparableTimSort.
B.JavaSource code in seven files and the one in ACL file
C.The English-language comments in CodeSourceTest.java and CollectionCertStoreParametersTest.java
A couple more notes from the past few days while we wait for court news Monday morning:
Some of Judge Alsup's comments in the courtroom in recent days suggested that he is skeptical of Oracle's position.
"If someone were to give you an assignment and say, 'Go write a guide book on how to drive from San Francisco to Monterey,' and everybody could sit down and write their own two-page thing on that, there would be some similarities. But the idea is not protected," Alsup said in court last Friday.
"Implementations are not derivative works. They are independent works, that simply start with the idea of the specification," he argued. "When somebody looks at a specification, and says, this is the input, and these are the outputs... programmers each use their own creativity" to implement it. This line of argument may lead Alsup to conclude that the "sequence, structure, and organization" of APIs are not copyrightable.
Indeed, some of the questions Alsup raised in his Thursday memo pressed further on this point. "Is the input-output (i.e., argument and return) scheme of a method copyrightable?" he asked. "For example, can someone copyright the function of inputting an angle and outputting the cosine of that angle? If someone has a copyright on a particular program to find cosines, does that copyright cover all other implementations that perform the identical function (input = angle, output = cosine)?"
Alsup also asked about the significance of a precedent that Oracle has cited repeatedly. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit—whose rulings Judge Alsup is not necessarily bound to follow—found that some aspects of a dental taxonomy are eligible for copyright protection.
Google and Oracle have a week to submit their detailed 20-page briefs responding to the Judge's questions.
Still no jury agreement in the copyright phase, but over the weekend one dumb juror decided it was a good idea to discuss patents with her husband "who knows a lot about it". She's now in a private conference with the judge. I'd expect she'll no longer be involved since the patent phase is now getting underway. Could be lucky if he only sends her home as punishment.
EDIT: The judge is letting her continue. He called in the rest of the jury to ask if anyone was influenced by anything she said today. Since they weren't he's allowing her to finish this part at least. Neither counsel is challenging it since neither can figure out who she favors.
Probably no more than additional icing for an expected appeal no matter who wins the copyright portion of the trial.
You;ll need to refer to the jury questions I posted above. They're unable to arrive a a complete verdict and neither Oracle or Google is happy with what they did agree on. For question 1A they ruled there was some level of copyright infringement. On whether it was fair use, 1B, they couldn't come to agreement, tho some of the onsite reporters guess that they were primarily going with Google on this one with one holdout juror.
On question two, no infringement by Google. That means the Judge won't necessarily need to rule on copyright-ability and part 2B doesn't apply.
Correction: He'll still be rendering a judgement in a week or so on whether API's can have a copyright to begin with.
Question three they found only Timsort, 3A, to be a problem and no infringement on any of the other files in parts 3B or 3C.
In the end, expect both parties to request a mistrial on the copyright phase. We'll see what the judge rules. As it stands now Oracle loses out almost across the board on their claims, getting only one line of statutory damages. Google apparently feels confident that can get rid of even that single affirmative claim in a retrial as they're pushing for a do-over.
If I was Google I might say it's fine as is and here's your $75K in damages rather than go thru the whole exercise again. Judge Alsup will make his ruling by Thursday. The judge has told the attorneys for both sides that unless he rules for Oracle that he (the judge) decides on the fair use question, then expect very little in the way of damages for the jury to consider.
EDIT2: The completed jury verdict form is linked here:
The LATimes has an article on today's court results. Oracle's not happy (nor is Google who wanted to be completely exonerated), with the damages from the copyright phase of the trial to be somewhere between $200 and $150,000. That's not nearly enough to even cover some of their legal costs. In addition there won't be any injunctions and no need for Google to re-write Android.
"Although the jury found that Google infringed on the largest of Oracle’s claims, it could not agree on whether Google was legally protected under the fair use doctrine, a key issue in the case. That limits Oracle to statutory damages, which range from $200 to $150,000. And Google will not have to redesign its Android software."
"After the jury left the courtroom, Oracle attorney David Boies suggested Oracle was entitled to more than statutory damages and should receive a share of Google’s profits. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the request bordered "on the ridiculous."
The LATimes has an article on today's court results. Oracle's not happy (nor is Google who wanted to be completely exonerated), with the damages from the copyright phase of the trial to be somewhere between $200 and $150,000. That's not nearly enough to even cover some of their legal costs. In addition there won't be any injunctions and no need for Google to re-write Android.
I don't understand why Google wants a mistrial based on that. I would think the legal costs of going through all this again would greatly outweigh the damages.
I think it's more to cover their butts on the outside chance Judge Alsup were to accept Oracle's argument and rule on "fair use" as a matter of law, and go even further and rule for Oracle. In that case the statutory damages wouldn't apply. However nothing the judge has said to this point would indicate he's leaning in that direction.
On a side-note Florian Mueller is quite upset and disappointed by what's happened going by his blog. I find that highly unusual for someone supposedly committed to FOSS. How could someone with a claimed career-long advocacy of Free and Open Source Software strongly support the copyright-ability of API's? IMHO the likely explanation is he's being driven by Oracle and it's money.
As a sign of just how insignificant this suit has become the Judge is encouraging the attorneys to agree that the damages portion of the case should just be done away with. The potential penalties are so small that he doesn't want to bother a jury with arguments for each side. Barring any change the maximum statutory damages are $150K, something the judge can set himself.
Predictably Oracle has changed their tune since the trial began, and now it's all about the money. Principles, if there ever were any, are out the window. They want Judge Alsup to give them some of Google's profits too, which he called ridiculous for using only 9 lines of Oracle code in the millions that make up Android.
Comments
An interesting turn. The jury isn't able to come up with a decision on copyrights, but Judge Alsup would like to get a partial verdict rather than completely start over.
The jury, unable to render a verdict on one of the most important three questions they were tasked with, has gone home for the weekend. There's some shred of hope that they can come to an agreement Monday morning, but in any case Judge Alsup is not going to delay the patent portion of the suit. That's still expected to begin on Monday.
There's a possibility that the Judge may ask for a partial verdict on the points the jury was able to agree on if they can't move forward on Monday. Beyond that he has also signaled an issue with the copyrightability of API's, at the forefront of the copyright legal proceedings. (The trial is split into three parts: copyright phase, patents, and then damages if warranted). The counsels have until the middle of this month to submit pleadings on the EU High Courts determination that copyrights on API's aren't permissible. Keep in mind that Judge Alsup gave notice that he would determine the copyright-ability, not the jury.
Nothing of importance expected before Monday morning.
EDIT: My apology for not writing what those three "most important" questions are:
Second question:
And the third question:
A couple more notes from the past few days while we wait for court news Monday morning:
Some of Judge Alsup's comments in the courtroom in recent days suggested that he is skeptical of Oracle's position.
"If someone were to give you an assignment and say, 'Go write a guide book on how to drive from San Francisco to Monterey,' and everybody could sit down and write their own two-page thing on that, there would be some similarities. But the idea is not protected," Alsup said in court last Friday.
"Implementations are not derivative works. They are independent works, that simply start with the idea of the specification," he argued. "When somebody looks at a specification, and says, this is the input, and these are the outputs... programmers each use their own creativity" to implement it. This line of argument may lead Alsup to conclude that the "sequence, structure, and organization" of APIs are not copyrightable.
Indeed, some of the questions Alsup raised in his Thursday memo pressed further on this point. "Is the input-output (i.e., argument and return) scheme of a method copyrightable?" he asked. "For example, can someone copyright the function of inputting an angle and outputting the cosine of that angle? If someone has a copyright on a particular program to find cosines, does that copyright cover all other implementations that perform the identical function (input = angle, output = cosine)?"
Alsup also asked about the significance of a precedent that Oracle has cited repeatedly. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit—whose rulings Judge Alsup is not necessarily bound to follow—found that some aspects of a dental taxonomy are eligible for copyright protection.
Google and Oracle have a week to submit their detailed 20-page briefs responding to the Judge's questions.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/05/oracle-google-judge-asks-for-comment-on-eu-court-ruling.ars
Still no jury agreement in the copyright phase, but over the weekend one dumb juror decided it was a good idea to discuss patents with her husband "who knows a lot about it". She's now in a private conference with the judge. I'd expect she'll no longer be involved since the patent phase is now getting underway. Could be lucky if he only sends her home as punishment.
EDIT: The judge is letting her continue. He called in the rest of the jury to ask if anyone was influenced by anything she said today. Since they weren't he's allowing her to finish this part at least. Neither counsel is challenging it since neither can figure out who she favors.
Probably no more than additional icing for an expected appeal no matter who wins the copyright portion of the trial.
You;ll need to refer to the jury questions I posted above. They're unable to arrive a a complete verdict and neither Oracle or Google is happy with what they did agree on. For question 1A they ruled there was some level of copyright infringement. On whether it was fair use, 1B, they couldn't come to agreement, tho some of the onsite reporters guess that they were primarily going with Google on this one with one holdout juror.
On question two, no infringement by Google. That means the Judge won't necessarily need to rule on copyright-ability and part 2B doesn't apply.
Correction: He'll still be rendering a judgement in a week or so on whether API's can have a copyright to begin with.
Question three they found only Timsort, 3A, to be a problem and no infringement on any of the other files in parts 3B or 3C.
In the end, expect both parties to request a mistrial on the copyright phase. We'll see what the judge rules. As it stands now Oracle loses out almost across the board on their claims, getting only one line of statutory damages. Google apparently feels confident that can get rid of even that single affirmative claim in a retrial as they're pushing for a do-over.
If I was Google I might say it's fine as is and here's your $75K in damages rather than go thru the whole exercise again. Judge Alsup will make his ruling by Thursday. The judge has told the attorneys for both sides that unless he rules for Oracle that he (the judge) decides on the fair use question, then expect very little in the way of damages for the jury to consider.
EDIT2: The completed jury verdict form is linked here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/92725855/Completed-verdict-form-in-Oracle-Google
EDIT3: ... and I got all that in before Mr. Mueller. LOL
His article is here: http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/05/partial-verdict-finds-google-to-have.html
The LATimes has an article on today's court results. Oracle's not happy (nor is Google who wanted to be completely exonerated), with the damages from the copyright phase of the trial to be somewhere between $200 and $150,000. That's not nearly enough to even cover some of their legal costs. In addition there won't be any injunctions and no need for Google to re-write Android.
"Although the jury found that Google infringed on the largest of Oracle’s claims, it could not agree on whether Google was legally protected under the fair use doctrine, a key issue in the case. That limits Oracle to statutory damages, which range from $200 to $150,000. And Google will not have to redesign its Android software."
"After the jury left the courtroom, Oracle attorney David Boies suggested Oracle was entitled to more than statutory damages and should receive a share of Google’s profits. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the request bordered "on the ridiculous."
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-partial-verdict-seen-as-setback-for-oracle-in-copyright-case-against-google-20120507,0,1923611.story
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
The LATimes has an article on today's court results. Oracle's not happy (nor is Google who wanted to be completely exonerated), with the damages from the copyright phase of the trial to be somewhere between $200 and $150,000. That's not nearly enough to even cover some of their legal costs. In addition there won't be any injunctions and no need for Google to re-write Android.
I don't understand why Google wants a mistrial based on that. I would think the legal costs of going through all this again would greatly outweigh the damages.
I think it's more to cover their butts on the outside chance Judge Alsup were to accept Oracle's argument and rule on "fair use" as a matter of law, and go even further and rule for Oracle. In that case the statutory damages wouldn't apply. However nothing the judge has said to this point would indicate he's leaning in that direction.
On a side-note Florian Mueller is quite upset and disappointed by what's happened going by his blog. I find that highly unusual for someone supposedly committed to FOSS. How could someone with a claimed career-long advocacy of Free and Open Source Software strongly support the copyright-ability of API's? IMHO the likely explanation is he's being driven by Oracle and it's money.
As a sign of just how insignificant this suit has become the Judge is encouraging the attorneys to agree that the damages portion of the case should just be done away with. The potential penalties are so small that he doesn't want to bother a jury with arguments for each side. Barring any change the maximum statutory damages are $150K, something the judge can set himself.
Predictably Oracle has changed their tune since the trial began, and now it's all about the money. Principles, if there ever were any, are out the window. They want Judge Alsup to give them some of Google's profits too, which he called ridiculous for using only 9 lines of Oracle code in the millions that make up Android.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/damages-oracle-google/?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=Previous
The jury finally rendered it's verdict regarding 8 Oracle claims that Google had appropriated their IP .
Google not guilty of any IP infringement.
The third part of the trial to determine damages won't be needed, at least for now.
http://www.mobileburn.com/19667/news/jury-finds-google-not-guilty-of-infringing-oracles-java-patents-with-android