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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.
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The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail[ Reply to This | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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Authored by: ankylosaurus on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 08:07 PM EDT |
Anything not related to the main article.
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The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Off-topic Discussions - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 11:30 PM EDT
- "rangeCheck could be programmed by a high school student" - a practical experiment - Authored by: artp on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:34 AM EDT
- "And that's a wrap" - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 04:15 AM EDT
- Try Agein - Authored by: MadTom1999 on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 06:59 AM EDT
- Try Agein - Authored by: artp on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 08:42 AM EDT
- Excellent! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 08:01 AM EDT
- Awesome! - Authored by: pem on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 08:59 AM EDT
- April Code Releases for Open webOS - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:34 AM EDT
- Reading Groklaw - Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 04:39 AM EDT
- Ebay being evil - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 10:49 AM EDT
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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- What if no anticipation of compensation? - Authored by: Christian on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:00 PM EDT
- Making - Authored by: bugstomper on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:20 PM EDT
- Making - Authored by: Christian on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:48 PM EDT
- Making - Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 10:49 AM EDT
- Making - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 03:08 PM EDT
- Making - Authored by: Ian Al on Saturday, May 19 2012 @ 03:34 AM EDT
- What if no anticipation of compensation? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:06 PM EDT
- The court won't rule on it. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 09:25 PM EDT
- But there is compensation! - Authored by: Steve on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 10:48 PM EDT
- I've always thought FOSS achived patent law's goals - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:03 AM EDT
- But making does infringe - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 03:01 PM EDT
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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- Semantics - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 11:41 PM EDT
- Semantics - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:48 AM EDT
- Semantics - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:12 PM EDT
- Index units - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 04:00 PM EDT
- Numeric memory location - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 12:54 AM EDT
- Numeric memory location - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 02:55 AM EDT
- Patent claims must limit scope - Authored by: csawtell on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 03:08 AM EDT
- Numeric memory location - Authored by: Chromatix on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 06:58 AM EDT
- Some good discussion, but missing an important point - Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 09:17 AM EDT
- Numeric memory location is where the data is - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 18 2012 @ 03:55 PM EDT
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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 | # ]
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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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