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A "symbolic reference" could be a squirrel | 132 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections
Authored by: ankylosaurus on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:03 PM EDT
It can be helpful to use 'wrong --> right' in the title so the mistake can be
seen by others.


---
The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail

[ Reply to This | # ]

anticipation of compensation
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:06 PM EDT
Google does not have an "anticipation of compensation" based on
supplying Android, nor even for OEMs or end users using Android. Its revenue for
advertising derives from the use of Google services: search, app store, mapping,
music, etc; and Android devices need not use any of those.

That is to say that any phone maker can take Android and configure it to use
non-Google services. Other makers can use different OSes and use Google services
(maybe not all of them).

[ Reply to This | # ]

Tweets from the courtroom
Authored by: feldegast on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:07 PM EDT
https://twitter. com/#!/Feldegast/oracal-vs- google-trial
Feldegast tweets - https://twitter.com/#!/Feldegast

- --
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2012 and released under the Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off-topic Discussions
Authored by: ankylosaurus on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:07 PM EDT
Anything not related to the main article.

---
The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail

[ Reply to This | # ]

News picks
Authored by: feldegast on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:07 PM EDT
Please make links clickable

---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2012 and released under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.

[ Reply to This | # ]

    Oracle v. Google - JMOL Briefs on Patent Infringement
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:21 PM EDT
    Oracle doesn't get to redefine symbolic reference to define their needs? Aw...
    that's just too bad.

    My heart fails to bleed.

    MSS2

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    What if no anticipation of compensation?
    Authored by: PolR on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:51 PM EDT
    Mark says:
    The most interesting argument Google sets forth is on the issue of what constitutes infringing activity. According to the patent act it is selling, offering for sale, using, making, or importing. Notably, that list of activities says nothing about distributing for free, and Google is arguing that their distribution for free of Android is not an infringing activity under the Patent Act.

    Of course, if I were Oracle I would argue that Google doesn't distribute with no anticipation of compensation, it's just that the compensation is not in the form of a license fee. I can't imagine this argument is going to go anywhere with the Court, but it is certainly an interesting argument. Can you imagine the reaction in the FOSS community if the Court would agree? Such a decision would virtually immunize FOSS from patent claims.

    How about distribution for free with no anticipation of compensation? What if the court determines that it is the anticipation of compensation that makes distribution an infringing activity? There will be repercussion on the liabilities of individual programmers and not for profit FOSS projects. The impact of patents may end up contained to for profit corporations.

    IANAL. I am just thinking loud about possibilities here.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Oracle v. Google - JMOL Briefs on Patent Infringement
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:25 PM EDT
    Google says the law says "Except as otherwise provided in this title,
    whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented
    invention, within the United States, or imports into the United States any
    patented invention".

    I would think Google would infringe via the "make" and "use"
    parts even if what they did doesn't count as "sell[ing]". Additionally
    if they do any of the development of the patented portions of Android outside
    the US they might violate the "import" prohibition. IANAL, but their
    argument about selling seems ridiculous and doomed unless some technicality
    prevents Oracle from asserting claims based on making or using at this point in
    the trial.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    these JMOLs are great
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:37 PM EDT
    Having each presented their patent cases before the jury, which is now
    deliberating, Google and Oracle now make the exact same arguments directly to
    the judge. :)

    I happen to agree with Google's JMOL arguments that Oracle failed to prove
    infringement of each patent (I don't know enough to have an opinion about the
    other arguments).

    I bet Judge Alsup will wait until after the jury verdict, and only grant one of
    these JMOLs if he believes the jury verdict is somehow clearly unreasonable.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Giving away software protects you from patent infringement?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:44 PM EDT
    "Such a decision would virtually immunize FOSS from patent
    claims." - Unless you're a Red Hat :-)

    Somehow I can't see that happening. The ramifications are
    equally as bad as that of, say, declaring API to be
    copyrightable.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Extremely poor immunity
    Authored by: shachar on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 10:47 PM EDT
    Such decision, if left to stand, would immunize <b>FOSS authors</b>
    from patent infringement. Since patent law does cover use, FOSS users would
    still be at risk.

    Living in a country where software isn't patentable myself, I can totally see
    myself writing software and freeing it for anyone who can to use. In theory, I
    can do it now as well, as any supposedly infringing acts took place out of the
    jurisdiction of the patent, but we all know that this is not something to rely
    on (What's this? You distribute your software through sourceforge? That creates
    a US nexus!).

    I've heard rumors from many years ago of MS sales people hinting at Samba
    violating patents in order to curtail adoption. Such things will not be
    prevented.

    If this position is accepted, while it would be great, it will not solve the
    fundamental problem behind software patents.

    Shachar

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Numeric memory location
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 10:55 PM EDT
    It seems to me that the Court's claim construction of "symbolic
    reference" is incomplete because it refers to the undefined (as far as I
    know) term "numeric memory location". Oracle seems to interpret a
    numeric memory location to be what a pointer points to (a memory address),
    whereas Google interprets a numeric memory location to be an index into any
    array in memory, including both the giant array of bytes/words that is all of
    main memory (i.e. Oracle's construction) as well as other arrays of objects
    created by the programmer. As an over-educated computer scientist both
    constructions seem reasonable to me. Ironically I just Googled for "numeric
    memory location" (without the quotes) and the first hit was for
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_address ; this fact is (slightly) suggestive
    that Oracle's construction is correct. I can see the jury being confused when
    faced with the impossible task of determining the meaning of a technical term
    that the judge apparently invented for this trial but never defined!

    Does anyone know why the Court didn't resolve this ambiguity when it did claim
    construction?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Infringing activity
    Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 11:25 PM EDT
    If the patent act includes "making" and "using" as
    infringing activity, it pretty much covers the users as well as the programmers,
    unless I'm missing something. It would not protect FOSS at all.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    immunize FOSS from patent claims?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 05:20 AM EDT
    "Can you imagine the reaction in the FOSS community if the Court would
    agree? Such a decision would virtually immunize FOSS from patent claims."

    Although it looks like progression, I think this would practically eliminate
    paid development of software which is to be released as free software upon
    delivery, which seems to me an important business model to make money from free
    software.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Oracle v. Google - JMOL Briefs on Patent Infringement
    Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 07:10 AM EDT
    Judge: This came from the copyright registrations?

    Google: Both of them.

    Oracle: First time we've heard of this. Well into the case to learn that they are going to claim that we don't have ownership [!]. Nothing that we registered takes away from our ownership.

    Judge: The argument is that the registrations themselves used the phrase "licensed in", which means that some of the work was done [authored] by somebody else, which means that you cannot stop someone from using parts of it, but you can stop them from using the work as a whole.

    Oracle: On the 37 packages, we are not claiming that.

    Judge: [talking off the top of my head ] Rule 50 motion… are you [Google] ready to file your Rule 50 motion today? Would prevent Oracle from having to re-open. I can't just let this lie in the weeds, that just wouldn't be fair.

    Google: [Van Nest] We will file Rule 50 motion by midnight. This Monday, they said that it was a compilation.

    Judge: So the first time that this came into your mind was this Monday?

    Google: No, they brought this up on Monday.
    The judge went on to say that Oracle must present testimony to the court of what was on the original presented CDs. Oracle failed to present a representative of the law firm who could have testified. Once that point was past, there was no way of showing the asserted individual files (rangeCheck and the eight decompiled files) were marked as Sun copyright because those markings would have to be on the file extracts on the CD.

    Google had little chance of a JMOL until this point in the trial had been reached. IIRC, they had to wait until after the closing presentations on Phase 1 before legally putting the motion to the court.

    I don't see why what Google did was in any way untimely.

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

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Infringing software machines and processes
    Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 07:36 AM EDT
    In Microsoft v. AT&T the Supreme Court said that an infringing software
    machine was only created when the code was installed from the final installation
    media on to a computer.

    Judge Alsup also used this judgement to rule that only devices imported or made
    in the US were in the case. All the accused devices were made outside of the US
    in the same way that the US patent-infringing Microsoft Media Player machines in
    question (spit) were made in Europe and not in the US. The State Department made
    it clear to the court that this was a matter controlled by international
    treaty.

    Google do not supply the installation media. The Supremes consider the code that
    Google make available is the equivalent of a blueprint and is not an infringing
    component of the infringing machine.

    Patented processes are only infringed by folk carrying out the whole patented
    process. Writing down the process on a piece of paper is not an infringement.
    Only people actually found to be running dx or dexopt in the USA can be
    infringing on the patented software processes. No evidence was presented to show
    such direct infringement by either Google or by third parties.

    There is the matter of incited infringement. I did not see Oracle get that into
    the jury instructions. The jury questions were all about direct infringement on
    the machine and processes by Google and no evidence was provided for incitement
    of infringement.

    It does not seem unusual to me to use the arguments made by the Supreme Court in
    a question of international software patent infringement.

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

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    A "symbolic reference" could be a squirrel
    Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 11:05 AM EDT

    For Oarcle's JMOL, much of the discussion on the first patent boils down to the question, what is a "symbolic reference"?

    The Court construed the term “symbolic reference” as "a reference that identifies data by a name other than the numeric memory location of the data."

    A "symbolic reference" is "a name other than the numeric memory location of the data".

    For Oracle, as long as it is not "the numeric memory location of the data", it could be anything. In fact, for Oracle, it could be an method - just as long as it is not a numeric memory location. For Oracle, a "symbolic reference" could be a class. That meets their definition of not being a "numeric memory location". For Oracle, it could maybe be a index. That also meets their definition of not being a "numeric memory location that identifies data".

    Finally, a "symbolic reference" could be a squirrel. That also meets their definition of not being a "numeric memory location that identifies data".

    The biggest problem they have is that they keep jumping over the first part of the definition. A "symbolic reference" is no only identified by what it is not, it is also identified by what it is - a name. And no matter how you look at it, a name is not a method, a name is not a class, a name is not an index, and a name is not a squirrel. (Though a squirrel could have a name, like for example, "Fred", and squirrels eat nuts, like for example, peanuts, but that is all beside the point.)

    Oracle's JMOL contains absolutely the most absurd argument I can imagine. It is just as absurd to call a symbolic reference an index as it is to call it a squirrel. In conclusion, I think Oracle's lawyers have been eating too many nuts.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    There's a new kid in town!
    Authored by: BJ on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 01:53 PM EDT
    And his name is Van Nest!
    That sounds Dutch enough for me to feel a bit of pride! ;-)

    OraGoogle-1166.pdf is impressively masterful!!

    disclaimer: IANAL.

    bjd



    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Oracle v. Google - JMOL Briefs on Patent Infringement
    Authored by: drewbenn on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 02:26 PM EDT
    What are the long-term legal ramifications if giving away FOSS is different from
    selling software? That seems like a *very* bad precedent to set, and I'm
    worried it would really work against FOSS in the long run.

    Does it affect the re-seller issue (the question PJ has been following with
    regards to importing products: if you get some FOSS software from someone under
    a copyleft license, can you resell it without having to perpetuate the license)?
    For good or bad?

    And for those of you who are interested in widespread adoption of FOSS: would
    that affect whether or not large organizations with rules/regulations on
    obtaining software will be able to use FOSS? The US Department of Defense
    argues that it's okay to use FOSS *because* it's "commercial software"
    (if it wasn't commercial software, government employees & departments might
    not be legally allowed to use it).
    http://dodcio.defense.gov/OpenSourceSoftwareFAQ.aspx#Q:_Is_open_source_software_
    commercial_software.3F_Is_it_COTS.3F

    [ Reply to This | # ]
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