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Oh goodness, is this another chess end-game? | 134 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Oh goodness, is this another chess end-game?
Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 04:20 AM EDT
PJ and Mark have trained me to see these court cases as complicated chess
games.

Could it be that the judge deliberately decided in favour of Oracle's Rule 50
motion even though it over-ruled a finding of fact from a jury that was going
the extra mile? I have seen that suggested, elsewhere.

On its face, the motion shows that a reasonable jury would have found for
infringement without a fair use defence.

Did the judge make his decision deliberately because, as he warned Oracle, he
would tell the jury that Oracle cannot show any evidence that Google profited
from the error. If the jury find that anything above the proven $0 is
appropriate, then Google can appeal the overturning of the jury decision. They
will be able to point out that they conceded copying for judicial efficiency
because the damages report from Oracle (that was largely stricken) made little
of the test files (or, was it nothing?).

If Oracle appeal on the legal principle of 'we want more money!' then Google
will have the same arguments to hand. They can have the API decision and the
test file infringement decision referred back for jury trial if not upheld by
the appeal court.

On the other hand, I might just have invented vicarious paranoia.

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

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

In which way, PJ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 14 2012 @ 06:58 AM EDT
Do you mean that you think that the judge got it wrong in
overriding the jury because the jury was correct?

Or do you mean that the judge got the verdict form wrong? I
don't know that any of us spotted this as a potential
problem. I'd like to think that at least the Google team has
a someone read Groklaw to pick up errors that we spot, so
that they can act on those when they are factual or matters
of law or logical problems with things like directions.

Or both?

My first response was that the jury was right, because I
find it very hard to see this copying as anything other than
de-minimus in the light of the amount of work involved in
creating those files, or when compared to either Java (or
indeed Android) as a whole, so I was _very_ surprised when
the judge
decided to override the verdict, especially using
'Reasonable jury' as a reason and that it was whole-file
copying; the file is a fairly arbitrary unit.

To me this is a bit of a slap in the face for the jury, and
completely disregarding the time and effort that they have
given to this trial; why would anyone feel anything but
upset to have spent weeks listening to something only to
find that it was completely purposeless effort.

But maybe there's something I can't see - I can imagine
Oracle claiming that the jury was unreasonable as grounds
for appeal - so it could be the judge pre-empting that. But
why did the judge pose the question if he thought there was
only one answer? Why waste the jury's time? I'm sure it must
have been to some purpose, I just can't see what it was.

Your opinion is useful because you consistently get it
right. Thanks.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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