Oracle-Google Trial: Jury Begins Deliberations

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury has started deliberations in a closely watched copyright infringement trial pitting Oracle against Google.

The federal case in San Francisco centers on Oracle's allegations that Google's popular Android software for mobile devices relies on technology stolen from Java. That's a programming platform that Oracle Corp. acquired in 2010 as part of its $7.3 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Google Inc. says it drew upon small parts of Java that aren't protected by copyright and traditionally have been freely available to all programmers.

The case was turned over to the 12-person jury Monday afternoon after two weeks of testimony and arguments. Oracle is seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.

After a verdict on copyright infringement is reached, the parties will address allegations of patent infringement.

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Comments

[dante]

06:47 PM on 05/01/2012

I didn't think this was over "hundreds of billions". I could be wrong, but that would be outrageous for a give-away operating system, even if they outright stole the entire Java source tree.

[AoC]

10:56 PM on 04/30/2012

Gotta go with what Jonathan Schwartz said. That being that Sun fully approved of Android and that Google was free to do whatever they wanted as long as they didnt call it Java.
Thats the icing on the cake for me.

[Highball]

01:05 AM on 05/01/2012

Yeah, it seems like it.

OTOH, as I said, juries are unpredictable. You just never know what they're going to do.

[Highball]

06:35 PM on 04/30/2012

This should be interesting. From what I have gathered from reading about it on-line, it is likely to go against Oracle. OTOH, it's always dangerous to assume verdicts based on either reading about or watching a trial. Juries are unpredictable, and that will never change.

But this will definitely be a huge decision, no matter which way it goes.