It's not 100% clear to me. There are two sets of things being argued here, Patents and Copyright. The actual code is what Oracle is claiming was patented. Google agreed that they had had minor infringement. 9 lines of code for a CheckRange function and a couple of Java test files. They and Oracle have an agreement in place that they will pay up fro that, probably like 150K. This jury just ruled that the rest of Oracle's patent claims were not infringed, that Google wrote their own code and didn't take anything patented.
Then there is the copyright portion of things. The copyright doesn't cover actual code, rather Oracle is claiming that it covers the apis. It isn't a piece of code, per se, but rather a description of interaction...hence copyright rather than patent. The judge told the jury "presume that apis are copyrightable while you make your findings of fact". Basically, said, presume that Oracle is correct in their legal theory and see if that represents an infringement. And, of course, Google did use the apis of Java and without Oracle's approval and licensing, so that would qualify as an infringement. Now the judge is going on to rule on the question of law, rather than the question of fact. Are apis actually copyrightable? If he rules that they are, the jury's finding of fact sticks and Google massively infringed. If they aren't copyrightable, then the jury finding of fact is a moot point. At least that is my understanding at this point, but I'm neither a legal scholar nor someone who has watched this with minute detail. Judah On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Dana <[email protected]> wrote: > > woo hoo. Why didn't they start with the APIs tho? Does not make sense to me. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:351271 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
