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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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One-sided, yes; dishonest, no | 361 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Compatibilinty does NOT mean Interoperability! Derp!
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:33 AM EDT
"A compatible implementation of Java doesn't fall under the category of
interoperability"


Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA!!

Oh, you.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

No, you're wrong...
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:34 AM EDT
"...But specifically in this case, this has absolutely no relevance other than from a PR perspective..."

In this document, court asked the parties to:

"...take a firm yes or no position on whether computer programming languages are copyrightable. In addition, each side shall include whether it has ever taken an inconsistent position before any other court or agency, including the PTO, and if so, append those inconsistent statements...

Oracle denied it had taken any position[s] contrary to its current position on the issue. But you tell us that it has no issue on the present case. Of course you are wrong. Before you post, please take time to get to know the issues.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj
Authored by: darrellb on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 06:55 AM EDT
Oracle's prior position on patents is absolutely relevant to this trial.

If I told you "go ahead and borrow my car, just fill it up with gas when
you're done" and then called to report it stolen, wouldn't you think my
prior statements were relevant?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:35 AM EDT
Well, one of the points they kept hammering during the trial (and are using as a basis for damage claims) is that Android is NOT interoperable with Java, and is thus fragmenting Java. So yeah, this is technically correct (the best kind of correct.)

Another point is that they sure tried as hell to show that there was no clean-room reverse engineering, which AFAIK is the only type of reverse engineering from which you can legally create interoperable products. (What, you think they originally included rangecheck and decompiled files only for the snowball's chance in hell of disgorgement profits?)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Can't get past that first line
Authored by: mexaly on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:08 AM EDT
I sometimes disagree with PJ, but I hope I'm less adversarial when I bring it
up.

---
IANAL, but I watch actors play lawyers on high-definition television.
Thanks to our hosts and the legal experts that make Groklaw great.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Wow - this article really hit a nerve!
Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:31 AM EDT

Yet again, pj, you're being one sided and dishonest.

I resent your use of the word "dishonest". PJ presented the evidence and gave her honest opinion as to her interpretation of the evidence. Of course her opinion is one sided. The vast majority of us side with the defendant on this issue, because we have all spent countless days and hours examining the evidence and have come to believe Oracle is wrong here. You are welcome to disagree, but I resent you calling PJ "dishonest" and expect you to apologize.

First of all, companies' "official positions" usually represent their interests at the time, and interests change.

So what's that got to do with anything? The question is what Google thought of Sun's position at the time it was developing Android - not Oracle's position today. The document presented by PJ indicates that Sun did not hold the point of view Oracle holds today.

Google said "don't do evil" and then breached privacy and worked with China to censor search results.

Do you have a source for that? As I remember it, Google took an heroic stand and refused to censor search results and moved to Hong Kong in protest, at risk of garnering China's wrath and losing business. Besides, what does that have to do with the issues discussed in the article?

this has absolutely no relevance other than from a PR perspective which you're apparently buying into

It has everything to do with the case, as well explained by other comments in this thread. Nobody is buying into a "PR perspective". As I said above, we all have examined the evidence in Oracle vs Google and have pretty much come to the same conclusion as PJ based on the evidence - not from some "PR perspective".

Your extremely biased position in the matters of this trial hinders your ability to provide your readers with thoughtful legal analysis.

Quite the contrary. Thoughtful legal analysis is what led PJ to her position - her point of view. If you find that "extreme", then it must because the evidence that led her was extremely convincing. It certainly is to me. Furthermore, I really appreciate the thoughtful legal analysis provided by PJ and Mark.

Others have addressed the remainder of your troll post better than I could, so I will not attempt it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

This post argues against anon posts
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 09:37 AM EDT
Sure would like to know who is posting this "opinion" that borders on
abuse.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Hilarious, but clearly a targetted defence
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:11 AM EDT
I tried to analyse the parent post for a considered reply, but I soon realized
that the entire post is full of illogic.

It reinvents terms, rewrites history, makes unsubstantiated statements about the
court case and its partial verdict, and is in general terms "living on a
different planet".

I conclude that the post was written by a BSF staffer who is worried that PJ
stumbled upon something dangerous to their case. The whole M.O. of the post
feels like BSF's work, because just like every other sentence they made in
court, it contains plenty of form but no logic nor commonsense.

It was definitely funny though. :-)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I suspect OP has not followed case
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:20 AM EDT
Or has developed selective amnesia. This case has been about all things under
the sun as soon as BSF realized how slim their actual case was. I have lost
count of how many side arguments have been advanced. Wonder how this will affect
the reputation of BSF?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One-sided, yes; dishonest, no
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 11:31 AM EDT

No one can deny that PJ's one-sided. All the snarky sarcasm, all the "just joking" is directed at one side. I don't mind sarcasm. In addition to groklaw, I read Robert X. Cringely, too.

But dishonest? Hardly. PJ's honesty and integrity, is one of the real strengths of this blog.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A Sun Position Paper on Software Patents, 2006 ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:20 PM EDT
yes compatibility is different from interoperability. in java world passing the
TCK meant compatibility and harmony or GNU Classpath never passed the TCK.
there have been various independent implementations of java, i think oracle
itself developed a TCK verified version for its own use. some dropin JVM also
have been made.
question is does Android inter operate with Java? if yes the oracle position can
be said to be limited by estoppel.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

did florian mueller just comment on groklaw?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:25 PM EDT
but then again....the little sense it has is more than FM
ever did

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Projection
Authored by: BJ on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 12:43 PM EDT
you're being one sided and dishonest.
That's a classic case of projection.
So my comment ends here.

bjd

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Zing - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 01:09 PM EDT
Hit a nerve eh? Obviously PJ is on the right track then :-), Thanks for the confirmation.
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 03:03 PM EDT
LOL



---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

My quick Rebuttal
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:23 PM EDT
>Yet again, pj, you're being one sided and dishonest. First of all,
>companies' "official positions" usually represent their interests
at
>the time, and interests change. No one seriously thinks that companies
>would rather adhere by some deeply held beliefs over their financial
>interests. Google said "don't do evil" and then breached privacy
and
>worked with China to censor search results. I don't think anyone would
>hold that against them in a court of law.

This evidence is another thing pointing to Suns position which Google would have
relied on when developing Android. So for the period up until the time that
Oracle took legal action here by reversing their stance I think its fair to
argue that asking for infringing profits is just a tad unfair. As to after the
date Oracle reversed the position then well that may be up to the Judge and Jury
to decide. It may affect willfulness of patent infringement. It's hard to
willfully infringe a patent you were led to believe would never be an issue.


>But specifically in this case, this has absolutely no relevance other
>than from a PR perspective which you're apparently buying into (and is
>probably the reason the page has been removed from Oracle's website).

Well PR is pretty important for most big companies. Bad PR like that generated
by cases like this can be very bad for a company. This bad PR is one of the
primary reasons Sun knew it could never sue anyone over this issue. They knew
they would lose 100 times more than they would gain (And the court would take
their previous actions/statements a lot more seriously than A company buying
them out like Oracle). And looking at how this trial is going it may be Oracle
losing 100 times more than they will gain. They may get a small win from this
case but it will out-way the negative PR that will affect there bottom line at
some point. The reason Oracle is able to take this suit is there PR/marketing
guys have decided that it can't get much worse than we are now so lets keep at
it.

>Oracle's patents that are at the heart of this part of the trial
>absolutely do not prevent anyone from writing software that is
>interoperable with any Oracle software. A compatible implementation of
>Java doesn't fall under the category of interoperability, and even if
>it did, these patents do not prevent a compatible implementation of
>Java.

What about Java code or libraries that you as a programmer might write? Is that
not interoperable with Android? Just dump out all the Java UI code and drop in
a sprinkle of Android UI and your app will now operate on Android. What is not
interoperable about this? This is the core reason for Androids use of the Java
Language.

>Please remember that Google has chosen not to implement Java at
>all, but to provide a translation mechanism from compiled Java
>bytecode to Dalvik bytecode, and this technical decision has made it
>difficult not to allegedly infringe Oracle patents. Oracle simply
>claims that Google's particular implementation infringes on their
>patents. Your amazing discovery is completely irrelevant.

Actually the work Google did in reinventing how Java should work makes it a lot
harder to pin patent infringement. It's these differences that make it possible
to argue that it doesn't practice the patents because many things are done in
different ways. Anything that they HAD to do the same would be just for reasons
of interoperability. Exactly what is talked about in the Sun 2006 statement on
patents.


>Your extremely biased position in the matters of this trial hinders
>your ability to provide your readers with thoughtful legal analysis.

We are all biased. This is one of the things that sets us apart from each other
and gives us opinions, thoughts and arguments. Sometimes you have to be willing
to take a position and stand up for what you believe in etc.

>(I do not in the present and have never in the past worked for either
>Google or Sun/Oracle)

Seems like you do now! ;) hehe just kidding

Michael

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

"Open Standards" vs Protection of API SSO
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 07:50 PM EDT
In this post, and in many of the defences you put in the ensuing "debate", you keep limiting yourself to patents, and the issue of whether the 2 patents impinge on operability.

On the other hand, I take Sun's paper to be a much wider- ranging statement on their overall position on "openness" - and, effectively, on whether the competition can lock-in their customers.

Sun state this:

Throughout Sun's history, we have stood for open systems, open standards and we have been fighting hard for interoperability in our sector.
This is a rather general and sweeping statement, and very much applies back to the copyright question (ie the 37 API packages in the case). The spirit of openness shown here fits very nicely with Schwartz's testimony - and is highly contrasting to the stance taken by Oracle on the API SSO.

I think everyone else in the debate is including this aspect in their thoughts, and are not staying closed to just the patent aspect.

--
WWWombat

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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