|
|
| A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj |
 |
|
Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:20 AM EDT
|
I can't find it on Oracle's website any more, but thanks to Internet Archive, we can find Sun Microsystems writing about software patents in 2006 and explaining its position. This was back when the European Union was for a while considering adopting software patents. You will not believe what Sun's position was. It's definitely relevant to the Oracle v. Google litigation. Sun's position paper was titled, "Software Patents: A European Union (EU) Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions must not Jeopardize Interoperability." The title says it all, but I'm going to show the entire statement to you in all its glory, so Oracle can't pretend, as it tried unsuccessfully to do with the Jonathan Schwartz corporate blog, that it wasn't an official company statement. Sun strongly urged that Europe, if it adopted the Directive, "allow for the creation of products which can interoperate with the protected products to safeguard competition in the sector and to provide greater choice and lower costs for consumers." Imagine that. Sun said publicly that interoperability was more important than IP rights, even patents, because it led to competition and hence greater choice and lower costs for consumers.
More from the position paper: If Europe adopts a new Directive governing the patentability of CII's it is vital that it ensures that patents do not prevent software vendors from developing and offering products which are interoperable with patented software.
Sun therefore strongly supports provisions which clarify that a software patent cannot be used to prevent software developers from engaging in reverse engineering permitted under the 1991 Software Copyright Directive (91/250/EEC) for interoperability purposes where interfaces/source codes are not published.
Moreover, a new EU CII Directive should also provide an exception in EU Member States' patent law which ensures that making, using or selling products incorporating third party patented technology necessary for the purpose of creating interoperable products are not patent infringing. This latter and critical point is not covered by the European Council's Common Position which was adopted on 7 March 2005. Sun believes failure to adjust for this concern would harm the interests of European consumers, entrepreneurs and the EU economy. That's clear enough, isn't it? Sun wasn't in favor of the Directive, but if the EU was foolish enough to allow software patents, at least it should include a way for interoperability to be preserved.
Let's tie it into Android. 2006 is an important year in the Oracle v. Google trial, in that Google bought Android in mid-2005, and it was in August of 2005 through mid-2006 that Google and Sun were in discussions about a partnership to co-develop it, as you can see from the slides [PDF] Google used in its opening statement (slide 24). Sun's patent position statement on the EU Directive, therefore, provides a contemporaneous context that illustrates that Google was not some thieving risk taker. It had every reason to believe that Sun viewed IP rights the way it said it did, that it approved of interoperability even when APIs were not published, let alone when they were, and that even patents should not trump interoperability. Talk about waiver.
Oracle has painted it in the trial that Sun hated what Google was doing with Android but was too weak to enforce its IP "rights", and that Oracle is the "new sheriff in town", strong enough to do what Sun would have done if it thought it could. But this position paper shows that it was instead a carefully chosen policy on Sun's part, based on what it believed was the best choice for the software industry. What Oracle is now doing, according to Sun's statement in 2006, would be a grab at a kind of monopoly so as to prevent competition and raise prices. Sun was not on the same wave length with Oracle. It was of a different mind set, and there's no pretending otherwise now.
It's not insignificant to me that this position paper doesn't seem to be on Oracle's site any longer. By hiding this history, it made it possible for Oracle to serve up to the jury some rather pungent sliced baloney.
This discovery shows the huge change in position that Oracle is now asserting in this litigation, something Google had no way to predict or anticipate. And it's a crying shame that the jury doesn't know about this position paper. But at least you do now, and you can judge for yourself whether what Oracle lawyer David Boies has tried to portray as good versus evil is not instead the reverse. Is it good or evil to retroactively sue someone for relying at the time on your public *official* positions? Is it good or evil to hide the truth and serve up sliced baloney instead? You be the judge. Nobody would have said Oracle couldn't alter its position going forward in time, but retroactively? It's why the law invented concepts like waiver and estoppel, to prevent low down dealings when business interests changed over time.
Oracle's good versus evil fantasy doesn't at all match the reality of the way things really were, judging from this position paper. Removing the evidence from a website can't change reality. Nor does it prevent us from discovering the truth, if we are willing to dig long and hard enough. And I am willing. It's what Groklaw is for.
Here's the full Sun 2006 Position Statement on software patents, followed by a screenshot:
Software Patents: A European Union (EU) Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions must not Jeopardize Interoperability
Issue Summary:
Although the European Patent Office (EPO) routinely issues patents on software innovations (with the intent of protecting the ideas behind the functionality of software), the enforceability of such patents remains uncertain because the EU does not have a harmonised software patent regime in place.
This, it has been argued, places European companies at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world. In order to create a level playing field with other regions such as the US and Japan which do have software patent laws in place, the European Commission therefore published, on 20 February 2002, a "proposal for Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions" (also referred to as the draft "CII Directive" or the "Software Patent Directive") which would extend European patent protection to cover software innovations and validate the work of the EPO.
If Europe adopts a new Directive governing the patentability of CII's it is vital that it ensures that patents do not prevent software vendors from developing and offering products which are interoperable with patented software.
Sun therefore strongly supports provisions which clarify that a software patent cannot be used to prevent software developers from engaging in reverse engineering permitted under the 1991 Software Copyright Directive (91/250/EEC) for interoperability purposes ? where interfaces/source codes are not published.
Moreover, a new EU CII Directive should also provide an exception in EU Member States' patent law which ensures that making, using or selling products incorporating third party patented technology necessary for the purpose of creating interoperable products are not patent infringing. This latter and critical point is not covered by the European Council's Common Position which was adopted on 7 March 2005. Sun believes failure to adjust for this concern would harm the interests of European consumers, entrepreneurs and the EU economy.
Sun's Position:
-
Throughout Sun's history, we have stood for open systems, open standards and we have been fighting hard for interoperability in our sector.
-
Sun believes in innovation and invests billions of Euro each year in software development. We believe in protecting these investments.
-
However, Sun believes that this protection should be balanced to allow for the creation of products which can interoperate with the protected products to safeguard competition in the sector and to provide greater choice and lowers costs for consumers.
-
Interoperability is of crucial importance to preserve choice for European consumers between competing offerings, and to preserve the equality of opportunity that the European IT sector needs to flourish.
-
Regardless of whether CII patents are desirable to foster innovation in Europe, if such patents could be used to prevent software vendors from developing new programmes which can communicate with other programmes used by the customers, users may find themselves locked into buying programmes from only one vendor. This would result in increased cost and reduced choice for consumers while also hindering the growth of the overall EU market for computer implemented inventions.
-
To avoid stifling innovation and reducing users' freedom of choice, Sun believe that an interoperability exception is needed in the draft CII Directive.
-
Article 6 proposed by the European Commission, and incorporated into the Council's Common Position, is needed to stop patents on software from preventing developers from engaging in the processes of reverse engineering permitted under the 1991 EC Software Copyright Directive for the purpose of achieving interoperability. However, although Article 6 allows for the development of products through reverse engineering, it does not allow for the manufacture, sale and use of such products without a license from the right holder. This effectively leaves existing dominant rights holders with a de facto veto over new and competing products.
-
More generally, even for products which are not produced through reverse engineering, an Article 6a is needed because without it software patent holders could invoke their patent rights to prevent the production and sale of software which will interoperate with the patented and other software.
-
Sun therefore proposes a new Article 6a which addresses this problem by providing a narrow exception permitting the use of patented technology to the extent "indispensable" for the development and sale of products which interoperate with the products protected by the patented technology or with other products.
-
Sun believes this is a limited, well-defined and clear exception to the exclusive rights of patent owners which strike a proper balance between the legitimate interests of patent rights owners and third parties, including both third-party software developers and end-users.
Here's a screenshot, just to make it clear that this was an official Sun position, publicly stated and published to the world:
Like I've said, I'm old-fashioned. If you can't win by telling the simple truth, I believe justice requires that you lose. If you'd like to know how I found this position paper, I searched on Google for the keywords
Sun Microsystems "patent policy" And that led me eventually to this website, which listed resources on wireless patents, and Sun was listed under Industry Organisations. After that, it was just a matter of going to Internet Archive and searching for the listed url, then checking if the paper existed anywhere else on the Internet, including Oracle's site. I mention this so you can do your own digging. It's a lot of fun.
Update:And just in case someone thinks that this might be relevant to patents but not to APIs, the issue is interoperability. Let's recall what Google pointed out in answer to Judge Alsup's direct question, asking the parties whether they believed software languages were copyrightable:
Google notes that Sun (now known as Oracle America) organized, formed and led the American Committee for Interoperable Systems (“ACIS”),5 the chairperson of which was Sun’s Deputy General Counsel, Peter M.C. Choy. In a press release after the First Circuit’s decision in Lotus v. Borland, Mr. Choy “noted that the decision will make it more difficult for vendors to attempt to lock out competitors and lock in consumers by asserting proprietary rights in certain ‘building blocks’ of software, such as programming languages, program interfaces, and the functional aspects of user interfaces.” First Circuit Lotus v. Borland decision supports interoperability, Business Wire, Mar. 10, 1995 (emphasis added).6 Mr. Choy was also counsel of record for an ACIS amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court, urging the Court to affirm the First Circuit’s judgment that the Lotus menu hierarchy was not copyrightable. ACIS argued that “[t]he
decisive issue in [the Lotus] case is whether copyright law can protect the rules that enable two elements of a computer system to work together.” 1995 WL 728487, at *3. ACIS further argued:
The 1-2-3 command structure is more than a user interface; it is the interface between the Lotus program and programs—referred to as “macros”—that are written by users at their own considerable expense for execution in connection with the 1-2-3 program. Because the 1-2-3 command structure provides the template for the macros and because the macros are the key to compatibility, the First Circuit, consistent with holdings in other circuits, ruled that those elements necessary to macro compatibility are not protected by copyright.
Id. (emphases added). Thus, while not directly taking a position on whether programming languages can be copyrighted, the brief implies that they cannot.
B. The APIs are integral to the Java programming language.
As Google has previously noted, Java’s own books describing the APIs state that they are available “to all Java programs . . . .” Trial Ex. 980 at xviii. Those books describe four of the APIs (out of eight that then existed) as “the foundation of the Java language.” Id. (back cover).
1. Without the APIs, the Java programming language is deaf, dumb and
blind.
The APIs are so fundamental that without them the Java programming language has no ability to provide any output to the user. Similarly, without the APIs, the Java programming language has no ability to accept input from the user.
__________
5 The organization had the same mailing address as Sun’s headquarters. At the time of the Lotus case, the ACIS website was located at http://www.sun.com/ACIS/.
6 Available via LEXIS-NEXIS. Sun also distributed this press release by other means. See, e.g., http://www3.wcl.american.edu/cni/9503/4860.html.
Oracle, in answer to the same question said, among other things:
The use of an API as a specification of how software modules interact arose during the 1970s. One example from that time is prototypes written in the C programming language. Prototypes are fragments of code describing the sets of parameters to be passed to different subroutines and the types of their return values. Developers combined these code fragments with English prose specifying the behavior of the subroutines, creating API specifications similar to those written today. Other developers could learn from the API specifications how different libraries worked without having to study their underlying implementations.
The techniques of modular program development are more relevant today than ever. Professor Mitchell will testify that today's software systems are among the most complex products ever created by human beings, and APIs are the core structuring concepts software designers use to manage this complexity. (Mitchell Opp. Rep., ECF No. 397-1 ¶ 18.) Software developers often collaborate on projects from different cities or countries. (Id. ¶ 25.) They use APIs to understand the potential dependencies between different sections of code without having to know how the code for an entire project works. A developer in San Francisco, for example, can design an API for a library and then design and implement the library. A colleague in Paris need only consult the API in order to make use of that library; there is no need to know the inner workings of the library. But Sun said that reverse engineering was vital:Article 6 proposed by the European Commission, and incorporated into the Council's Common Position, is needed to stop patents on software from preventing developers from engaging in the processes of reverse engineering permitted under the 1991 EC Software Copyright Directive for the purpose of achieving interoperability. However, although Article 6 allows for the development of products through reverse engineering, it does not allow for the manufacture, sale and use of such products without a license from the right holder. This effectively leaves existing dominant rights holders with a de facto veto over new and competing products. That's the veto that Oracle is trying to enforce over Android.
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:27 AM EDT |
Please summarize in the Title box error->correction or s/error/correction/ to
make it easy to scan to see what needs to be corrected and avoid duplication of
effort.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:28 AM EDT |
Please stay off topic in these threads, but do adhere to Groklaw's comments
policies.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:40 AM EDT |
Comments on News Picks articles go here. Please put the title of the News Picks
article in the Title Box and the clicky link to the article itself in the body
of your comment posted in HTML Formatted mode for the convenience of readers
once the article has scrolled off the News Picks sidebar.
Hint: The geeklog software that runs Groklaw has a bug that sometimes makes a
link broken when the comment is posted. Put spaces before and after the text
portion of the link to prevent the bug from triggering, as in
<a href="example.com"> The Article </a>
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: trevmar on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:42 AM EDT |
Great work, PJ !! It might be a bit late to find it now - but there's always the
little issue of 'spoliation of evidence'
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:55 AM EDT |
Please keep them coming - And/or help out organizing the OraGoogle exhibits.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:06 AM EDT |
First of, IANAL and find such docs to be a 'liar liar' moment.
But, as a matter of law, how does the existence of this paper impact the case
and the strong statements that Oracle made? Can the lawyers and/or their clients
who should have known of this document be impeached in any way by the courts?
In particular how does this impact any appeal that may be brought forward by
Google?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: belzecue on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:08 AM EDT |
Adding this, which shows a discussion paper from April 2008
linking to the same Internet Archive page.
-----
From: SHARING THE INTEROPERABILITY BALL ON THE
SOFTWARE PATENT PLAYGROUND by MICHAEL CHAPIN
https://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/sci
tech/documents/Chapin.pdf
"An interoperability exception was supported by some
software firms, most notably SUN Microsystems, who issued a
position paper on thetopic. Sun emphasized that patent
protection “should be balanced to allow for the creation of
products which can interoperate with the protected products
to safeguard competition in the sector and to provide
greater choice and lower costs for consumers.” Sun
Microsystems [Home Page, Position Papers: Software Patents,
http://web.archive.org/web/20061218011518/http://www.sun.com
/aboutsun/policy/software_patents.html (last visited Mar.
24, 2008)]. However, Sun only supported a more narrow
exception that would permit uses that were “indispensable”
in order to create a product that could interoperate with
products covered under a patented technology."
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:16 AM EDT |
I wonder if SUN's view of 'interoperability' at that time would have extended to
include user interfaces?
Consistent of UI would allow for a safer use of the many modern devices and
using patents (e.g. slide to unlock) would stifle teh availability of safer
devices?
My view is that software patents should not be granted but how obvious patents
like slide to unlock is just beyond my comprehension.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sproggit on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:21 AM EDT |
As I read this, I wasn't just struck with the realisation that Sun's 2006
position on patents was a country mile away from that currently espoused by
Oracle/Sun, but by the potential value of this documentation to Google, had we
been able to find it during discovery.
Thinking back, I notice that we [well, PJ] has done something similar in pretty
much all the other cases we've followed. That is, PJ's interest in the finer
points of the case remains piqued, and documents like this may come to light.
As I read the text of this Sun document, I could not help but ask myself how
powerful it would have been if it could have been shown to the jury in the
instant case.
So it occurs to me that there is scope for improvement [should we collectively
wish to strive for it] in the way that we, as the Groklaw community, observe and
participate in legal cases that impact things that we believe in. A
crowdsourcing-in-action in a legal context.
What do you think?
If this has potential, then perhaps we could ask PJ and Mark to come up with a
framework or pattern that we could apply to things like "a search for prior
art"... At a high level, we all know how such a search needs to be carried
out.
The trick is to look at the claims for an individual patent, and to determine
what other areas of endeavor may have that prior art that could be used in a
successful rebuttal. In other words, there are key ingredients to success,
including:-
1. The coordination of the process and distribution of the workload.
2. The identification and analysis of the relevant points from the key claims or
topics at issue.
3. The application of relevant technical skills to those relevant points, to
make a determination as to the best places to look for relevant evidence.
4. The actual searching and retrieval of the evidence.
5. The peer review process, collation, sorting and ultimate presentation of that
evidence back to the Court in question.
There are ways this could be done, either by the offer of support to the
relevant party or Counsel for a party, or by filings such as an amicus brief.
The reason for this idea jumping in my head this morning, however, is because
much as I found this article to be fascinating, I think it would have been
infinitely more valuable if we'd found it and submitted it during the discovery
phase of the trial.
So what do you think?
Is there scope and interest enough to take "The Groklaw Principle" to
the next level? Is there interest enough from this community to participate? Is
this something that we can make bigger and more useful than any one of us
combined? A resource that we can share back with the developers and coders that
give us so much enjoyable, valuable code?
Answers on a postcard, as the saying goes...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:56 AM EDT |
| If Sun is urging politics for a particular playing ground and rule set for
everyone, for very good reasons, that does not mean that if the playing ground
is different, they should not be allowed to adapt. If they intended setting an
example in voluntary compliment, they would not have needed to engage
politics at all.
The court is not there for setting the rules. It is for
making sure the existing rules are heeded.
If they say "it is harming
business that I am forced to do this and that", does that mean that they should
be precluded from doing this and that, at an even greater cost to their
business?
I can see nothing wrong with asking for new rules while trying to
make the most from the old ones. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:05 AM EDT |
Yet again, pj, you're being one sided and dishonest. First of all,
companies' "official positions" usually represent their interests at
the time, and interests change. No one seriously thinks that companies
would rather adhere by some deeply held beliefs over their financial
interests. Google said "don't do evil" and then breached privacy and
worked with China to censor search results. I don't think anyone would
hold that against them in a court of law.
But specifically in this case, this has absolutely no relevance other
than from a PR perspective which you're apparently buying into (and is
probably the reason the page has been removed from Oracle's website).
Oracle's patents that are at the heart of this part of the trial
absolutely do not prevent anyone from writing software that is
interoperable with any Oracle software. A compatible implementation of
Java doesn't fall under the category of interoperability, and even if
it did, these patents do not prevent a compatible implementation of
Java. Please remember that Google has chosen not to implement Java at
all, but to provide a translation mechanism from compiled Java
bytecode to Dalvik bytecode, and this technical decision has made it
difficult not to allegedly infringe Oracle patents. Oracle simply
claims that Google's particular implementation infringes on their
patents. Your amazing discovery is completely irrelevant.
Your extremely biased position in the matters of this trial hinders
your ability to provide your readers with thoughtful legal analysis.
(I do not in the present and have never in the past worked for either
Google or Sun/Oracle)[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Compatibilinty does NOT mean Interoperability! Derp! - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:33 AM EDT
- No, you're wrong... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:34 AM EDT
- A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj - Authored by: darrellb on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:55 AM EDT
- A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:35 AM EDT
- Can't get past that first line - Authored by: mexaly on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:08 AM EDT
- Wow - this article really hit a nerve! - Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:31 AM EDT
- This post argues against anon posts - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:37 AM EDT
- Rhymes with "Jellison" maybe? - Authored by: Guil Rarey on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:42 AM EDT
- This post argues against anon posts - Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:54 AM EDT
- This post argues against anon posts - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:04 AM EDT
- Fast learner - Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:10 AM EDT
- Fast learner - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:46 AM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: pem on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:58 AM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:30 AM EDT
- Your bias is showing as well - Authored by: pem on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:38 AM EDT
- Kindergarten CHECK! -- unadorned truth be abundant here!! - Authored by: BJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:17 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:24 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:12 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 02:50 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:03 PM EDT
- And BTW... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:37 PM EDT
- And BTW... - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:56 PM EDT
- Homework - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:08 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:01 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:13 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Wol on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:21 PM EDT
- On interoperability and on WINE - Authored by: bugstomper on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:45 PM EDT
- What is this, kindergarten? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 05:50 PM EDT
- Please tell me more - Authored by: artp on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:48 AM EDT
- Android DOES interoperate with Java. - Authored by: Wol on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:32 PM EDT
- Assertions and anecdotes are not evidence. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:28 PM EDT
- This post argues against anon posts - Authored by: jjs on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:50 PM EDT
- Correction: none are _accused_ - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:05 PM EDT
- Interoperating with yourself makes no sense - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:30 PM EDT
- You're absolutely right - Authored by: pem on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:33 AM EDT
- This post argues against anon posts - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:34 AM EDT
- Hilarious, but clearly a targetted defence - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:11 AM EDT
- I suspect OP has not followed case - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:20 AM EDT
- One-sided, yes; dishonest, no - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:31 AM EDT
- A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:20 PM EDT
- did florian mueller just comment on groklaw? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:25 PM EDT
- Projection - Authored by: BJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:43 PM EDT
- Zing - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:09 PM EDT
- Hit a nerve eh? Obviously PJ is on the right track then :-), Thanks for the confirmation. - Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:03 PM EDT
- My quick Rebuttal - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:23 PM EDT
- "Open Standards" vs Protection of API SSO - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:50 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:24 AM EDT |
This is why it will never happen cause no one in the usa
cares about a consumer
they are not part of an equation the short term boost to
profits can only go so long and we are now entering the
phase of the next type a ceo the damage control mode ceo....
it is gonna take the usa a decade to get going and by then
the rest of the world will have said cya and i just have to
say keep trying to get infinite copyrights now that i saw
what people want its economic terrorism by americans all ip
is.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:43 AM EDT |
The fact that one can find old embarrassments on the web but
not on their servers may be an indication that some have
actively removed some content from the public view.
Has it ever happened that a Judge ordered a "diff" against
archive.org to see if there was an indication spoliation of
evidence?
---
______
IMANAL
.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:50 PM EDT |
Sun got disrupted and lost. Dot-coms got corrected into the ground in
2000.
Low cost servers, generally running Linux, eroded too much of Sun's
server
business and were the key to the success of post-dot-com-bubble
firms, e.g.,
Google and Facebook. No value judgement intended or should be
inferred. It's
the way of the world. Oracle bought the assets and
liabilities of Sun. It
did not buy the philosophies and opinions. Indeed, we had
the testimony from a
witness from Oracle who said, when doing due diligence,
he decided Sun couldn't
figure out how to make money. Sun was an indirect
partner of
Oracle who was
contemptuous of Sun's choices and worried that its decline
would drag them down
too. Oracle was early in
on java and much of the
middleware between clients
front-end applications and the back-end Oracle
database were in java. At the
time Sun came onto the market, one of Oracle's
motives was being sure that Sun
wasn't acquired by IBM or Microsoft, the two
biggest direct competitors to
Oracle. Oracle has to honor Sun's
licenses, received and given, and
contracts. They don't believe they are bound
to Sun's business models and
theories. Besides, Sun was a hardware and
services company who wrote software
to add value to the hardware. Oracle is a
software company who has an os
(actually, two, and now some hardware) to
protect itself against another
database vendor with an os, such as Microsoft,
from taking their
business. Could
a company running as per Schwartz's theories have done
well? Sure. There are
examples. Sun, however, was not starting at the ground
floor and building up,
they were coming down from the penthouse and that is a
much more difficult
proposition, just ask HTC, RIM, or Nokia. Oracle has done
all right over the last
20 years, despite the success of mySql and recent
Hadoop/MongoDB/CouchDB/BigTable/BigData/MapReduce non-relational
database
products. (These latter things may be disruptive to Oracle, however, at
the
moment, the the concepts are not being productized for general sale
because a
good massive database is the competitive advantage. Once that stops
being as
true, or an external party someone sees the opportunity, then Oracle,
DB2, and
SQLServer will face some tough times.) Oracle has
continued by not sweating the
cheap low-margin products, though it offers a
couple. Improvement comes from
no-cost external sources and Oracle can
establish a relationship with a
customer while it's still small and the cost of
acquiring that customer is very
small.
So even if there are merits to past Sun white papers regarding
patents, that
world isn't here yet, and if Sun couldn't convert the theory into
revenues, Oracle
is prejudiced against the idea. Oracle stands foursquare
behind the concept, if
we can't make money off of it, we don't care about
it. We really can't
be surprised if Oracle doesn't endorse or even care
about preserving what it
considers Sun's wanderings in its final days. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: hAckz0r on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:51 PM EDT |
| I have to wonder if the Sun website was named in the discovery phase, and if so
why did Oricle not produce these as court documents? Not producing relivant
documents which have been removed from the named site is the same
to me (IANAL)
as evidence spoliation.
---
DRM - As a "solution", it solves the wrong
problem; As a "technology" its only 'logically' infeasible. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:53 PM EDT |
MP4 users are vulnerable to this type of change in stance. Google have put
effort into ensuring vp8 and checking ogg video is immune to any future cost
hikes/monetisation with legal statements for vp8.
Apart from a transitionary period whilst acceleration chips using vp8 become
mainstream, mp4 should be dropped. Apples veto on ogg in the html5 standard may
show their reluctance unfortunately.
With more than 60% of even desktop users browsers preferring open formats,
Apple's preference should be sidelined.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 08:24 PM EDT |
The position paper says that they opposed software patents becoming a reality in
Europe, and requested an interoperability clause if it were to happen, but Sun
was already living in a world where software patents were legal in the USA, and
at the time that Sun published that paper, they were full participants in the US
software patent system, having filed for many many patents in the USA already,
including the patents in suit. So how relevant is this paper to the current law
suit?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 10:58 PM EDT |
I think the core reason Sun took this position that patents should not be used
to stop interoperability was because large portions of there own business
depended on this understanding. How could they develop an operating system like
Solaris without interoperability with others software. They didn't want others
holding patents over all the code they wrote themselves.
They also wanted the Java ecosystem to be open and interoperable as well of
course.
They may have other altruistic motives as well but also doing things that
further your own companies interests is easier for your Board of Directors to
swallow.
Now Oracle has in theory just as much to lose from their use of others patent
and copyrights that sun had. However Oracle may have a view that they are
simply too big and powerful for anyone to Sue. Especially now they have all of
there own patents and now Sun's IP/patents as well. Also a lot of their
software that can be attacked is based on Open source projects and no one can
attack them without attacking the original projects first so I don't see them
worried about this.
Michael[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 09:39 AM EDT |
| Perhaps already known, if so I apologize....
Oracle'
s Patent policy
(http://www.ibiblio.org/patents/txt/020294.txt)
I particularly enjoyed:
Even if Oracle had developed a certain invention
first and could produce the
appropriate prior art to prove
its case, thousands of dollars in attorneys fees
and other
expenses would be spent in defense of its rightfully-owned
technology. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 11:31 AM EDT |
It is interesting, but how does it relate to the case.
First, is the evidence closed and would this merit granting
a motion to reopen? How does it affect or impact jury
decision making, as already done? Has any right of Google to
introduce this into evidence effectively been waived? If
there is a retrial because the jury could not resolve
whether there was copyright fair use, would this then
matter?
Is it even relevant? A company can alter its policy
positions at will. It is free to do that. This item is not
granting any license or rights. Not with regard to any
specific property. Sun policy under McNealy and under
Ellison can be expected to be different.
The question is: Did Sun in posting this on the web
compromise any right of ownership or right of enforcement?
If the evidence were that Google detrimentally relied on
this representation in some material way, then there may be
a waiver or estoppel argument to be made against Sun/Oracle.
But the evidence seems to be Google's people were basically
unaware of this and hence could not have relied upon it. It
seems irrelevant unless it was mentioned or offered in some
Google offer of evidence that was denied, or somehow cited
between lawyers in reaching agreement on what would be
uncontested trial exhibits.
It seems already largely established that Sun attitudes and
"policy" at top levels have changed. Oracle acquired Sun,
and that does not mean it is constrained to think as
predecessors thought. The norm in mergers and acquisition is
that the dominant firm's "culture" becomes the culture of
the new aggregate. Paying the cost to be the boss.
Or am I wrong?
I fail to see relevance[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:27 PM EDT |
| Not that anyone will find this thread at the bottom... [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Another jury note - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:29 PM EDT
- The waiting!! (n/t) - Authored by: hardmath on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:30 PM EDT
- Did they dump coffee on their dresses or what?! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:35 PM EDT
- Jury wants another readback on 104 patent - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:36 PM EDT
- Court reporter asked to repeat answer to previous question - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:43 PM EDT
- Judge in cheerful mood. "They can send another note if they want more" - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 12:44 PM EDT
- Another jury note. More testimony readbacks? - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:33 PM EDT
- 3 Jury questions - van Nest ready for two of them but needs some minutes for the third - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:35 PM EDT
- "Can we determine a numeric reference instruction to become symbolic..." - Oracle: "yes" - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:51 PM EDT
- Jury still confused on Q1 of 3 on 104 patent - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:54 PM EDT
- Jury: "does the resolution of symbolic references need to happen immediately" - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:55 PM EDT
- Van Nest: "Yes - or at least reference must be contained in instructions" - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 01:57 PM EDT
|
|
|
|
