In Oracle vs. Google, Oracle assumes that Software
patents are OK in
principle, claims that 26 of their own
patents are valid specifically and claim
that Google did
something covered by those patents. At trial, they agreed
not
to discuss validity at all, and only fought over the
issue "does Android do what
the patents say they
cover".
In Oracle vs. Lodsys, Oracle claims that 4
of Lodsys
patents are invalid because some other people invented
(and patented!)
the same stuff first. They don't say that
the patents are invalid because they
are on Software or
other such reasons we would love to have case law
on.
In both cases, Oracle thus assumes that "Software
patents are good",
and then proceed just as they would if
these were old fashioned hardware
patents. This is
consistent, even if we don't like the bad
assumption.
Note in particular: All the prior art cited by Oracle
against Lodsys is a bunch of other patents, while the
prior art cited by
Google against Oracle (at the Patent
office only) included non-patent
publications such as
academic papers and books.
I would say these cases
look like Oracle is presenting
itself as a patent hard liner, which is also the
type of
company that usually puts patent indemnification clauses in
its paid
EULAs.
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