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Authored by: nsomos on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:01 AM EDT |
Please place corrections here.
A summary in title may be helpful.
e.g. Docketp -> Docket
Thanks[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:08 AM EDT |
This is an odd question to ask and non-trivial to reply to. I
suppose the judge is looking for legal analogies, but this one
seems out of left field.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: feldegast on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:12 AM EDT |
https://twitter.com/#!/Feldegast
https://twitter.
com/#!/Feldegast/oracal-vs-google-trial--- 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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- Tweets from the courtroom - Authored by: belzecue on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:42 AM EDT
- Alternative Raw Feed - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:03 AM EDT
- Court being used for something else this morning? - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:06 AM EDT
- Jury still deliberating - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:51 AM EDT
- Jury note - Van Nest is back in court. Boies missing - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:41 PM EDT
- Jury question on 502 too long to tweet: Jacobs doesn't understand it anyway - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:46 PM EDT
- Teams are working together to decipher it and answer - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:46 PM EDT
- Joint opinion: "We have no idea what they are saying" - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:54 PM EDT
- Oracle wants to read them some claim language. Alsup dubious - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:55 PM EDT
- Continued in new article - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:57 PM EDT
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Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:13 AM EDT |
From the decision, and it's a 9th circuit case.
The Virtual Game Station does not contain any of Sony's copyrighted material. In
the process of producing the Virtual Game Station, however, Connectix repeatedly
copied Sony's copyrighted BIOS during a process of "reverse
engineering" that Connectix conducted in order to find out how the Sony
PlayStation worked. Sony claimed infringement and sought a preliminary
injunction. The district court [p*599] concluded that Sony was likely to succeed
on its infringement claim because Connectix's "intermediate copying"
was not a protected "fair use" under 17 U.S.C. � 107. The
district court enjoined Connectix from selling the Virtual Game Station or from
copying or using the Sony BIOS code in the development of other Virtual Game
Station products.
[4] Connectix now appeals. We reverse and remand with instructions to dissolve
the injunction. The intermediate copies made and used by Connectix during the
course of its reverse engineering of the Sony BIOS were protected fair use,
necessary to permit Connectix to make its non-infringing Virtual Game Station
function with PlayStation games. Any other intermediate copies made by Connectix
do not support injunctive relief, even if those copies were infringing.
---
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 | # ]
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Authored by: feldegast on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:13 AM 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: feldegast on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:14 AM 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 Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:14 AM EDT |
How will Oracle spin this? I also understand that this case has little [if any]
resemblance to the Oracle-Google case at hand.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:27 AM EDT |
The Sony v. Connectix case is a horse of a different color, me thinks. Connectix
admitted to copying the BIOS of the Play Station in order to figure out how it
works in order to reverse engineer its functionality, and did not include any
copyrighted Sony BIOS code in its final product, and Sony admits that no
copyrighted BIOS code made its way into the final Connectix software that
emulates the play Stations functionality, and the ninth circuit found that
making intermediate copies for the sole purpose of reverse engineering was fair
use.
Google is not claiming that they copied the SSO of the 37 APIs merely for
reverse engineering purposes, and they admit that they included the SSO of the
37 APIs in their final product (Android) for compatibility purposes, so if the
SSO of the APIs is able to be protected by copyright (which I do not think
should be the case), then Google will be found to have infringed.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:34 AM EDT |
I may just love this Judge a little.
The reasons for the reversal by the 9th
are perfectly
analogous for declaring the items before the court as
unprotected. And highlights soem pretty compelling fair use
arguments.
Excuse my laziness, hat tip to wikipedia
The court found that the ultimate purpose and
character of
Connectix's use of Sony's BIOS - in that it created a new
platform for Sony Playstation games - qualified as "modestly
transformative.
While the Ninth District Court did acknowledge that
software
deserves copyright protection, the court, following the
precedent of
Sega vs. Accolade, deemed the PlayStation
firmware to fall under a lowered
degree of copyright
protection due to it containing unprotected parts
(functional elements) that could not be examined without
copying.
"For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a
result of
this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use.
Sony
understandably seeks control over the market for
devices that play games Sony
produces or licenses. The
copyright law, however, does not confer such a
monopoly."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:38 AM EDT |
The numbers of the filings we have seen on Groklaw are
up to 1170
1181
1188
Are there filings between these numbers?[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:55 AM EDT |
I have come up with a bit of clarifying thought. Google copied the protected SSO
by using Harmony's implementation code. The only way for Harmony to get a
working 51 packages was the use of the protected SSO. There was not an
alternative SSO that they could use.
(I don't think the SSO actually exists as protectable creative expression that
can be 'employed' by Harmony or anyone else, so this is technically impossible
to prove either way because the SSO is a non-expression and, thereby,
non-fixable in anything, let alone media.)
Connectix must have generated the Sony SSO as well as the other interface
definitions in order to have a functioning API. In the same way that Google
copied the SSO without ever seeing it fixed in a medium, so did Connectix.
If the argument in Sony v, Connectix is that it is fair use to recreate the API
package because that is required to prevent copyright misuse producing an
effective monopoly, then it is also fair use for Google to do the same thing to
prevent Oracle misusing copyrights to gain an effective monopoly.
That Sony did not argue the SSO is irrelevant to the judgement. Whatever aspects
of the API, whether specified or unspecified and including SSO, that was
necessary to prevent copyright misuse and gain a functioning interface is fair
use copying.
To circumvent this argument, Oracle would have to show that Harmony could have
produced a functioning Java API using an alternative SSO. Not being a lawyer, I
don't know whether they have lost the opportunity to do that. Not being a
complete idiot, I don't think there is any such animal as an alternative or
original SSO.
---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:29 PM EDT |
References to Sony v. Connectix appear in the following
submissions and
transcripts:
29th August 2011. http://w
ww.groklaw.net/articlebasic
.php%3fstory=20110902071933374 - GOOGLE INC.’S
REPLY IN
SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON COUNT VIII OF
PLAINTIFF
ORACLE AMERICA’S AMENDED COMPLAINT: http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org/pdf
3/OraGoogle-368.pdf
6th September 2011. http://ww
w.groklaw.net/articlebasic..php%3fstory=2011091011343331 - ORACLE AMERICA,
INC.’S
OPPOSITION TO GOOGLE’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON COUNT
VIII OF
ORACLE’S AMENDED COMPLAINT: http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org/pdf
3/OraGoogle-396.pdf
9th September 2011. http://ww
w.groklaw.net/articlebasic..php%3fstory=2011111007432819 - RESPONSE to re 601
Letter
in Opposition to Google's Further Precis re Copyrightability
by Oracle
America, Inc.. (Jacobs, Michael): http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org/pdf
3/OraGoogle-611.pdf
15th Stepmeber 2011. http://ww
w.groklaw.net/articlebasic..php%3fstory=2012020309143182 - TRANSCRIPT OF
PROCEEDINGS
4th November 2011. http://w
ww.groklaw.net/articlebasic
.php%3fstory=20111105084812885 - Letter from
Robert A. Van
Nest Further Precis Re Copyrightability. (Van Nest, Robert):
http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org/pdf
3/OraGoogle-601.pdf
5th May 2012. http://w
ww.groklaw.net/articlebasic
.php%3fstory=20120508170121519 - GOOGLE’S
OPPOSITION TO
ORACLE’S RULE 50(A) MOTION AT THE CLOSE OF PHASE ONE
EVIDENCE:
http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org/pd
f3/OraGoogle-1092.pdf[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 05:42 PM EDT |
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 | # ]
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Authored by: tiger99 on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 07:39 PM EDT |
The sort of thing that the Skyline Cowboy's cattle would do, given the chance.
OK, he turned out to be all hat and no cattle, but you get the point. And yes, I
do see McBridian logic at work here. I don't pretend to comprehend some of the
legal stuff, but I see mention of an ABI, as opposed to an API. Now, there is no
way known that an ABI could ever be copyrighted (although Darl and his Bungling
Schyster Fools tried), because it has no physical existence. It is a purely
notional concept. There are legal theories (which we all dispute) that an API
may be copyrightable, but the most stupid Boiseness imaginable could not
come up with a theory that an ABI could be copyrighted. If so, everything that
we know would be sued out of existence, including basic language and
mathematics. Here is why. When you program a computing device, even the
humblest little microcontroller, you may need to put a particular numeric value
into a certain particular register to make the thing work the way you want. You
can't have legal restrictions on what you can put where. If you do, it would be
exactly like forbidding use of certain words, or syllables, or maybe even
letters, and also numbers, which if implemented would make civilisation itself
collapse. I don't know the legal term, but PJ has explained at least several
times during the SCO nonsense that words and even short phrases can't be
copyrighted, because of the effect that would result. So, you can stuff any
register with any value, on the same basis that I can assemble English language
words, or ASCII characters, in the way I am doing right now. Likewise you can
program the execution of any instruction. To activate an ABI, you simply stuff
your chosen numbers into certain registers and execute a certain instruction.
You do not need visibility of what happens after that, until the OS hands back
control to the next instruction in your program. Nor does the OS need to know
anything about your program, only that your program has fed it some numbers, for
it to process. It does not need to know anything about your overall intentions,
what language your program was originally written in, or who owns its copyright.
It only knows the numbers your program passed it, numbers which are not
copyrightable. If you invoke the ABI with an INT instruction, as on x86 (it
might be TRAP or SYSCALL or umpteen other things on other architectures), the
INT instruction, with its numeric parameter, is owned by you and your program.
The code where execution transfers is owned by the OS, which will do its thing,
and return to your program with something like an IRET instruction, belonging to
the OS. The next thing that is executed is the next instruction in your program,
which will likely do something with the uncopyrightable numbers that the OS has
left in the registers. The ABI is non-existent because it all happens in the
non-existent gap between the last instruction in your program and the first
instruction executed by the OS, or vice versa. Note that the ABI does not
involve names, which if long enough may in theory be copyrightable, it only
involves numbers, and as we have seen, it would be nonsense to limit which
numbers we are allowed to use. In any case, it would be the CPU manufacturer who
would have the right to tell you which numbers you were allowed to feed the
hardware, on either side of the ABI, but they don't, because they are only
interested in selling you a general purpose CPU for you to program as you
will. So without any hope of copyrighting individual numbers, and binary
numbers at that (usually, I suppose you could have a decimal based CPU), there
is not the slightest hope of the owner of code on one side of the non-existent
ABI from exerting any rights to restrict the owner of code on the other side of
the ABI. The recently discharged jury now know all about the differences
between symbolic and numeric references, complete with errors introduced by the
"experts", but when you are dealing with an ABI, not an API, there are no
symbolics involved. There may be in a run time interpreter, or a compiler, or
whatever tool is used to transform human-readable source (ok, monkey-readable
source, if M$ is involved) to binary which will run, but an ABI is by
definition an Application Binary Interface,and its notional existence is
only at run time, and is purely numeric. There is of course a set of
human-readable mnemonics which are really API, not ABI, and contain names like
exit, close, fork....., but these are of compelling interest only to the
compiler or run-time interpreter. You can very easily (if you are daft or want
to prove a point) program with alternate mnemonics, maybe depart, shut, spoon,
as long as there is the correct header file present to map your mnemonics, which
you control, to the correct syscall numbers for the ABI, which being numbers are
not copyrightable. But try as hard as you can, you will not manage to get a
single copyrightable item anywhere near an ABI. Only binary numbers, and no such
thing as the ABI anyway, just a notion to help out programmers. Last time I
heard, you could not copyright intangibles, phlogiston, or the
tooth fairy. But I think the USPTO would be willing to issue a patent for
phlogiston..... [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:55 PM EDT |
Seem to me that the judge is trying really really hard to
avoid ruling on copyrightability. If he can find a way to
rule, as a matter of law, for Google on fair-use, all this
goes away.[ Reply to This | # ]
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