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Handout | 134 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections
Authored by: PolR on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:17 PM EDT
If any are needed.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT here
Authored by: PolR on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:19 PM EDT
Please follow the important stuff below the commenting box. Also make your links
clickable. The little red text on how to post in HTML below the comment box
includes an example of how to do this.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Newspicks here
Authored by: PolR on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:21 PM EDT
Please indicate the title of the news pick in your comment title.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes here
Authored by: PolR on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:23 PM EDT
Thanks to all the volunteers. This project continues.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Handout
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 03:40 PM EDT
To assist you on the direct infringement issue, counsel gave you a handout that identified the limitations in dispute and underlined in red the elements disputed. Oracle contends that the accused products and methods satisfy all the limitations of the asserted claims. Google concedes that the elements not underlined are present in the accused products but contends the underlined items are absent.
Is this handout available somewhere online?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Symbolic reference?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 04:28 PM EDT
The definition of Symbolic reference as anything other than a direct reference
is a bit odd - there are also indirect references rather (memory cell contains
address of the thing that is being referenced, and so on ad infinitum - at least
if you're coding assembler on an HP 1000).

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle v. Google
Authored by: darlmclied on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 05:56 PM EDT
I'm puzzled by the judge over-ruling the jury's verdict on
the issue of the decompiled files.

I'm inclined to agree with the judge, but why did he ask the
question if he wasn't going to accept the answer?

Seems like a recipe guaranteed to create an appeal.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Zero potential damages?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 07:26 PM EDT
If oracle are not going for statutory damages, and are
legally barred from
presenting evidence on infringers profits (due to the
shenanigans with their
damages reports), it looks to me (IANAL) like they have
zero possibility of any
damages unless there is a legal ruling in their favour
somewhere.

Is that right? And if so, is this weak position a strategy
to manipulate the judge
into ruling something for them to try to salvage the
beelions instead of getting
the statutory pittance.

Alternatively is is something to do with the chance of
the injunction they are
seeking being
affected by the type of damages? I have no idea how
this works?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle v. Google
Authored by: pcrooker on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 07:37 PM EDT
Now I will address the burden of proof. In this phase, the preponderance of the evidence standard applies. ... Preponderance of the evidence basically means “more likely than not.
I thought patent cases required the defendant to provide conclusive evidence, not just preponderance of evidence???

[ Reply to This | # ]

What, exactly, constitutes a "product or method covered by a claim"?
Authored by: Tkilgore on Sunday, May 13 2012 @ 11:20 PM EDT
Quoting:

"Oracle accuses Google of direct infringement. Deciding whether a claim has
been directly infringed is a two-step process. The first step is to decide the
meaning of the patent claim. I have already instructed you as to the meaning of
some of the terms in the asserted patent claims. The second step is to decide
whether Google has made, used, sold, or offered for sale within the United
States a product or method covered by a claim of the asserted patents.
Distributing or offering a product for free constitutes a use or sale. If it
has, it directly infringes."

I have asked this question before, and I still do not completely understand.
What, exactly, has Google "made, used, sold, or offered for sale"
which is a "product or method covered by a claim" of an asserted
patent?

Does or can source code for a computer program constitute a "product or
method" which can violate a patent?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Kicking over the hornet's nest.
Authored by: eachus on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 12:33 AM EDT
I may not have spent my career studying Constitutional law, but I think that the Judge has just made an error which will invalidate the rest of the (jury) trial. "The jury is the trier of law and of fact." I could go on for pages about jury nullification, but that is irrelevant here. This is all about facts, the jury reached a verdict given the jury instructions and the testimony they heard. If the jury found that the copying was "de miniumus," a question they were charged by the court to decide, for the judge to find that their verdict is contrary to fact, is unconstitutional. The jury did not throw out the law, they applied the law to the facts as determined by the jury, and reached a verdict.

Could the judge determine that, since the jury could not reach a conclusion on one of the questions, to declare a mistrial? Sure. But can he fill in the verdict form the way he feels is appropriate? Hell, no! This is not a bench trial.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Evidence At Trial
Authored by: sproggit on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 02:42 AM EDT
In the order reproduced with this article, the Court writes:-
"The evidence at trial showed that Google decompiled eight Java files and copied them each in their entirety. No reasonable jury could find that the copying of entire computer files was de minimis."
Yet in the Introduction to it's Motion Re Summary Judgment for Copyright Damages, Counsel for Google wrote the following:-
"This Court should grant summary judgment for Google on Oracle’s right to recover any of Google’s profits based on infringement of Oracle’s copyrights in (1) a 3,000-line file called Arrays.java, from which Google copied a nine-line method called rangeCheck; and (2) eight decompiled test files, which were copied by a third-party contractor called Noser in violation of Noser’s contract with Google and unwittingly used by Google (and which never actually appeared on any Android phone). Oracle has no evidence, and cannot possibly prove, that Google earned any revenue causally linked to either the nine lines of rangeCheck or the eight superfluous test files."
I am not entirely sure of the relevant point[s] of law here, but it seems to me that Google has provided uncontested fact to show that a third party, Noser, and not Google, were responsible for copying the test files, and that Google, through it's contract with Noser, took reasonable levels of caution to ensure that Noser acted properly during their execution of that contract.

In other words, it seems to me that if Oracle has a complaint with someone, it is with Noser, not Google.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Google's perspective on the "Test Files" portion of the copyright infringement would be that Oracle have made their complaint against the wrong party.

Let's be kind to Oracle and assume that they were not aware of this before the commencement of the trial. Once Google had presented it's evidence in defense, surely we should expect Keker & van Nest to ask either Oracle or the Court to withdraw that specific portion of their complaint. To do so would not prejudice Oracle from the other complaints they wished to raise, but it would alleviate all parties from the overhead of having to evaluate a charge for which Google are evidentially not guilty.

Unless. Unless Oracle was more interested in securing a large financial payout from Google, and unless Oracle realised that Noser, a 130-strong company with Headquarters in Switzerland, are

(i) Headquartered outside of the US - in Switzerland - which would add to the cost and complexity of bringing this lawsuit on US soil.
(ii) a smallish, 130-person company who are very unlikely to have pockets as deep or well-filled as Google.

In short, as I have written multiple times before, this case is all about getting money out of (extorting money from?) Google.

It intrigues me to see that Google have not placed such a motion before the Court. In wondering why, I can only guess that Google are happy to let this mistake remain with the case to strengthen their arguments for an appeal should they ultimately lose.

I would be interested, however, to know if anyone has any other thoughts as to why this seems to be being ignored by all parties...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why the judge is correct here - and Google should still be happy
Authored by: stovring on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 03:46 AM EDT
Many commenters appear very upset with the judge overruling the jury with respect to de minimis copying of the eight files. But the logic of the judge seems ironclad here, as Google did indeed copy the files in their entirety, although inadvertently. But note, that this finding requires defining the work as a whole, which was infringed, to equal just these eight files - I would guess that this reduces any possible damages to some number, which in any version will be indistinguishably similar to zero $ (as in nada, zilch, squat, etc.), since none of these files gave Google any income. Their income is from Android in general, and this is by this ruling no longer the work as a whole.

- stovring

[ Reply to This | # ]

What if the Judge up to?
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 09:41 AM EDT
I have the sense that the Judge is carefully going somewhere with all of this.

Suppose he granted Oracles motion with full knowledge that the jury will
probably find minimal damages, and then after the damages phase rules on the
SSO?

Surely there will be other motions on patents and damages. Oracle has already
started. The Judge seems not to care for corporate litigants and has
acknowledged that there will be an appeal.

Just wondering.

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

News from the court
Authored by: ChrisP on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 11:08 AM EDT
Rachel King has been tweeting about court events for the last half an hour.
Interesting. Jury to ignore anything that happened since the complaint was
filed.

https://twitter.com/#!/ZDNetRachel

---
Gravity sucks, supernovae blow!

[ Reply to This | # ]

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