The U.S. federal judge presiding the billion-dollar legal battle between Oracle and Google over the Android operating system has tossed Oracle's claim that the Java APIs (application programming interfaces) Google used in Android are subject to copyright. The judge's ruling marks yet another defeat for Oracle in its high-stakes case against Google.
Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court of Northern California gave the ruling on Wednesday, May 30, in response to Oracle's motion for a judgment as a matter of law that Google infringed U.S. Patents No. RE38,104 and No. 6,061,520. The jury has recently rejected both claims, but Oracle insisted for a judgment as a matter of law, still hoping to get a guilty charge for Google. Alsup denied the motion, arguing that there was enough evidence to support the jury's verdict.
"This order does not hold that Java API packages are free for all to use without license," Judge Alsup wrote in an order filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. "It does not hold that the structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be stolen. Rather, it holds on the specific facts of this case, the particular elements replicated by Google were free for all to use under the Copyright Act."
Android Did Not Infringe
Although the second phase of the trial was confusing at times, with technical terminology and other disputes between expert witnesses for the two companies, Judge Alsup defended the jury's decision. "Even adopting Oracle's belated efforts to construe 'data' to mean 'the ultimate data to be obtained or used after symbolic reference resolution is performed,' a reasonable jury could still find that Android did not infringe," ruled the judge.
Alsup did, however, conclude his order dated May 30 with a comment regarding the poor testimony of Oracle's core expert witness, Dr. John Mitchell, a computer science professor at Stanford University. "The foregoing is sufficient but it is worth adding that Oracle's infringement case was represented through Dr. Mitchell. A reasonable jury could have found his many 'mistakes' in his report merely to be convenient alterations to fix truthful admissions earlier made before he realized the import of is admissions," Alsup wrote in the order. "For this reason, a reasonable jury could have rejected every word of his testimony."
Clear Win for Google
Oracle filed a lawsuit against Google in 2010, alleging that Google's Android software infringed both patents and copyrights for Java, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. The jury had already cleared Google of patent infringement, and the judge's ruling on May 30 means Google is now cleared of copyright infringement as well.
