Oracle, Google limber up for round two in their Android Java bout

Put your dukes up, and let's do this all over again

By Gavin Clarke • Get more from this author

Posted in Law, 5th October 2012 17:02 GMT

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Oracle has launched an appeal after its legal action over the use of Java in Google's Android operating system fell flat. Not to be outdone, Google is also appealing against part of the trial's outcome.

Larry Ellison's database company yesterday filed notice of its plan to appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The filing comes after Oracle had almost all of its Java patent and copyright infringement case against Android thrown out by a US court.

In May Google was cleared of most of Oracle's allegations after a jury reckoned that the search giant had not infringed any patents - but the panel deadlocked on whether or not Google had fairly copied a few bits of Oracle's Java code.

Google now wants to appeal the trial judge’s decision to not set aside this latter verdict on copyright, according to Bloomberg.

At the time, Judge William Alsup awarded Oracle zero-dollar damages; Oracle had expected as much as $2.6bn. Last month, Oracle was also ordered to pay $1.3m of Google's legal fees.

Oracle had alleged Google's Android ripped off patents it owned on Java, but the jury eventually disagreed and backed Google's defence of non-infringement. Oracle's attempts to claim copyright on the programming platform's software interfaces (APIs) and their associated documentation was also otherwise thwarted: the court decided that the design of the APIs is not copyrightable, and Google was not at fault.

Summing up at the time, Judge Alsup said: "While it is true that Oracle prevailed on two minor, peripheral copyright claims, this win has not materially altered the legal relationship among the parties." ®

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