| I think you may be reading too much into the judge's denial, because a clearer
case of estoppel is hard to imagine. Short of a written declaration by Sun at
the time to the effect that no 180-degree turn would ever be made, how could
estoppel be any stronger?
Alsup is not rejecting estoppel on merit nor as a
matter of law. We've seen his standard M.O. in action whenever he rejects a
claim, namely that he gives copious reasons to make his ruling virtually
impregnable. In contrast, he says that Google's estoppel defense is merely
"unconvincing". This is code for "leave it for another day", because he has not
even hinted at a legal finding that Google needs to counter. There is no
lighter denial than an unadorned "unconvinced". It means that the tipping point
for being convinced could be one paragraph away.
Not only that, he has even
pointed out that Oracle virtually estopped themselves by suggesting that they
would not have sued if Google had copied the entire SSO instead
of only part of it. He actually gave Google ammunition for an estoppel defence
on appeal! This is as close to comedy as law ever gets. He's a seriously
insightful judge. :-) [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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