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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Dog in the manger by any other name | 400 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
rangeCheck - vast amounts of prior art
Authored by: TiddlyPom on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:31 AM EDT
To claim that a simple range check function is the copyrightable property is
ridiculous:

private static void checkBounds(int lenItem, int startPos, int endPos)
{
if (startPos > endPos)
throw new Exception1("Start > End");

if (startPos < 0)
throw new Exception2("Start < 0");

if (endPos > lenItem)
throw new Exception3("End > length");
}

So many people who frequent Groklaw will have written code that implements this
functionality (including me - different versions in several programming
languages). There is NO WAY that Oracle can claim that this code (or similar
code) is THEIR PROPERTY! I have personally written code with this (trivial)
functionality (in Ada) in the 1980's using exceptions like this Java example
does.

---
Support Software Freedom - use GPL licenced software like Linux and LibreOffice
instead of proprietary software like Microsoft Windows/Office or Apple OS/X

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Bad actors
Authored by: Ian Al on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 04:55 AM EDT
I draw from your outline that bad actors are those that do inequitable acts
wilfully and profit by them, intentionally.

If the act were accidental or inadvertent then it would be wrongful, but not
wilful. I wonder who, in this US jurisdiction, has the role of deciding between
bad acting and accident.

Did I mention that IANAL? Anyway, it seems to me that this is a fact for the
jury to decide. I can't help feeling that, by not declaring that they would go
for infringer's profits before the jury trial, Oracle have missed their chance
to get this necessary decision.

On the other hand, perhaps that is appropriate for the jury to be asked in phase
three.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Bad actors - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 06:17 AM EDT
Dog in the manger by any other name
Authored by: globularity on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 08:08 AM EDT
Those arguments boil down to somebody complaining about somebody else making
money off something of theirs at no cost to them.

The word infringement or unjust is just a label to hide the spoilers
(complainant) real intent of profiting from somebody else's work. The word
unjust is meaningless in the context of the legal system which is all about
process.

---
Windows vista, a marriage between operating system and trojan horse.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Restitution, Unjust Enrichment, and Disgorgement of Profits
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 08:17 AM EDT
If you are going to go after [parts of] the profits of the entity because they
have an asset of yours, then surely only the profits generated by that asset
should be under consideration - that is the profits that have been
misappropriated.

AFAICS the RangeCheck function is not vital (it was accidently there in the
first place, has been removed and Android still works fine), and if had not been
included the profits of Google would have remained the same; thus the profit
generated by the misappropriated asset is $0 and so I'd be quite happy for
Oracle to have 10 %, 100% 1000% or whatever percentage they want of that as any
percentage of $0 is still $0 - the only problem comes in that this could then
become case law and someone who does misappropriate an asset and use that asset
to gain more than $0 profit would possibly suffer a ridiculous injustice.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

How burden of proof turns infringer's profits into insanity
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 10:41 AM EDT
According to the law -- I am relying on PJ's explanation here -- all that
Oracle has to prove is Google's gross profits from the alleged infringement.
Then it becomes <strong>Google's problem</strong> to show all the
parts
of this profit that did not stem from the mistaken distribution of a couple test

files.

Which is more than a little problematic in a case like this, where the value
of these files to Google is more than a little murky.

What might make perfect sense where the benefits and costs to the alleged
infringer -- like the example given of selling books in another market at $7
profit per book -- make less sense where the causality of profits due to an
alleged infringement is essentially unknowable.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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