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| Authored by: pem on Tuesday, May 29 2012 @ 07:46 PM EDT |
Copyright law allows for statutory damages. So even when no harm is proven,
Oracle can collect their $200.
Unless the judge thinks it's all covered by fair use.
But he didn't seem to be leaning that way, especially with the files copied by
the subcontractor -- in fact, he explicitly disagreed with the jury IIRC.
The thing is, he knows everything about what he does is going to be appealed,
and he's apparently trying to come up with a fairly appeal-proof ruling.
A finding of "fair use" on all counts might be difficult -- even he
didn't think parts of it were fair use. Even the finding I expect him to make
-- that there are no real damages, so statutory damages are all Oracle gets --
will be appealed, but it's much less likely to be overturned.
Once he finds for Oracle on that, I don't think he can award costs against
Oracle on the copyright portion. In fact, they will be after him to award costs
against Google, but I think it is within his discretion to decline to do that,
and say that everybody pays their own costs.
What I would like to see is that he decides that no reasonable jury could have
decided for Oracle on the patent issues, and then awards Google for its patent
defense. But I doubt that will happen. He seems to take the military boot camp
stance that "you guys are all in this together -- you should have worked it
out and not bothered me." Which is what leads me to believe that the most
likely outcome is that both sides bear their own costs.
OTOH, if he were to decide "Google pays Oracle's reasonable copyright costs
and attorney's fees, and Oracle pays Google's reasonable patent costs and
attorney's fees" then I think that Oracle might owe Google some money, but
even that remains to be seen.
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