InfoQ Homepage Legal Matters Content on InfoQ
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Oracle Accepts $0 From Google, But Plans Appeal
Oracle has agreed to accept $0 worth of damages from Google, after Oracle's legal team agreed in court yesterday to forego any statutory damages in connection with its infringement case against Google.
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APIs Cannot be Copyrighted
The judge in the ongoing Oracle vs Google case has set out an order that the structure, sequence and organisation of APIs cannot be copyrightable. The case is effectively over, with Oracle having lost on all counts, and the only copying found to be nine lines of code. Read on to find out more.
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Jury Denies Patent Infringement by Google
After days of deliberation, the Jury has returned in the Oracle versus Google case, delivering a resounding victory for Google by agreeing that there was no patent infringement.
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Oracle vs. Google: Judge Alsup Reveals he is a Developer as Jury Considers Patent Claims
The jury in the Oracle vs. Google case is considering its verdict on the two patents. With the mixed verdict they delivered in the copyright phase, where they were unable to agree on whether Google's use of Java constituted fair use, a great deal for Oracle now hinges on the outcome of the patent phase.
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Google Would Have Paid up to $50 Million to License Java, Schmidt Reveals in Oracle vs. Google Trial
Google would have paid Sun's asking price of $30-$50 million to license Java, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt stated at the Oracle vs. Google trial. Google didn't object to the amount of money Sun wanted, but it didn't want to give up too much control over Android. J
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Oracle Sues Google over Google Copyrighted Code
The Oracle case against Google focusses on a 9-line piece of code, called 'rangeSort' which appears identical in Android and in OpenJDK. Unfortunately for Oracle, the code was initially written by Joshua Bloch when he was employed at Google, and was subsequently contributed to the OpenJDK by Google. Read on to find out these developments and more.
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Can APIs be Copyrighted?
Whilst the Oracle/Google case was initially based on the assumption that Oracle's patents were valid – now all but demolished – Oracle has switched tack to claim that it is a copyright violation. At heart is the question of whether an API or even a computer language can be copyrightable.
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Java APIs Take Centre Stage in Oracle vs. Google Trial
Last week saw the beginning of the Oracle vs. Google trial. Oracle's main complaint, involving a damages claim of $1bn, is that Android's use of 37 Java APIs infringes its copyright in the Java programming language. Google maintains APIs cannot be copyrighted, and has tried to frame the case as Oracle's response to its own failure to build a Java-based smartphone platform.
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Oracle and Google go to Court
Last month, Judge Paul Grewal ordered the Oracle and Google to attempt to negotiate a settlement. Google offered a $2.8 million settlement on condition that Oracle can prove patent infringement. However, Oracle rejected that offer as too low, so the case will go to court on the 16th April.
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Online Social Networks Face Litigation Risks
Google, Facebook and other companies operating totally 21 Social Networking websites are facing criminal proceedings in an Indian Court, over objectionable content accessible through the websites. A High Court has warned that the sites can face a ban in India unless they screen content. Is the growing flux of regulations surrounding social media a risk for businesses investing in social?
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SOPA, PIPA – Should Engineers Care
On 18th January, wikipedia.or among other estimated 10,000 web sites stopped their service in order to protest against the US legislation planning to endorse SOPA and PIPA. Software engineers might think, that they are not affected by the legislation, especially if they are outside the U.S., but considering Big Data, Cloud Computing and other trends this could be a rather naive perspective.
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Agile Contracts Primer Available for Download
Tom Arbogast, Bas Vodde and Craig Larman have released a sample chapter from their upcoming book on scaling Lean and Agile. The chapter deals with the difficult topic of writing contracts for agile development.
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Is The Patent System Broken?
In a recent interview with The San Francisco Chronicle the patent counsel of Google, Tim Porter, claims the patent system itself is broken. Patent offices worldwide have been increasingly granting protection to “innovations” that are not innovative. The IT Industry is currently facing a series of patent trials which some large corporates seem to leverage as weapons for attacking competitors.
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Controversial Opinions on Software Patents - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Patents are quite often in the news these days, most notably the ones related to smart phone vendors like HTC, Samsung, Google and Apple. This also holds for the rather emotional and controversial discussion about software patents which some consider as a means to ensure innovation and others as a kind of weapon. Do software patents cause more harm than good, or vice versa?
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Microsoft / SUSE Linux Deal Extended until 2016
SUSE, formally part of Novell, has renewed its interoperability agreement with Microsoft for five more years. This agreement includes a 100 million investment in “new SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates”. And like the last agreement it raises more questions than answers.