

Oracle Must Pay Google $1,130,350 in Costs - darshan
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120904211545683

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raganwald
What I take away from this is that a serious court case costs millions of
dollars. Which means is that the current patent system erects a massive moat
around the entrenched players with large patent portfolios and the cash to put
lawyers to work 24/7/365.

From time to time, some small troll wins a few hundred million from Microsoft
or whatever, but the real story here is that if you don't have ten million
dollars to buy into the game, you can't play. It's almost as if the odd "win"
by a bit player is a PR stunt to convince congress that the current system is
an incentive for entrepreneurs and dreamers to invent new things.

But it's all bullshit. It's a rigged game.

~~~
dredmorbius
I really like the suggestion of malandrew yesterday on HN:

 _This is one of the main reasons I think that all money spent on lawyers
should go into an account that both sides get to draw upon equally to pay
legal expenses. You simply cannot have a system capable of meting out justice
if money can skew "justice" in your favor._

The two questions which immediately come to mind:

1\. How to bell the cat (how does one actually get this enacted)?

2\. What could possibly go wrong?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4475702>

~~~
bostonpete
> 2\. What could possibly go wrong?

Easy to imagine how this could be abused. Imagine that I have a brother who's
a lawyer. I bring a frivolous lawsuit against Google/Apple/Microsoft/etc.
knowing that they'll dump a fair amount of money into the account. My brother
bills me for legal services, taking roughly half the money from the account. I
lose the lawsuit but my brother and I split the money.

~~~
dredmorbius
Courts have been relatively wary of dismissing frivolous suits (at least
according to some reports) in recent decades (perhaps in response to an
overinclination to do so in the past, further disadvantaging disenfranchised
groups). A bit of strengthening of frivolous suit protections, and a waiver of
the shared fees in this case, might help.

I'll give you another: there are situations in which pro-bono services may be
provided to one party in a suit. Often to increase the equity of a situation,
but not in all cases. Should the pro-bono provider be on the hook for the
opposing parties reciprocal costs, and how should the PB provider's services
be valued?

The SCO v. IBM suit is another in which I could see IBM's legal costs (very
high, I'm sure, though I've seen no figures or estimates given) but in which
SCO being granted pooled fees would be a miscarriage of justice.

Why is being good so difficult?

------
cageface
I guess we'll never know for sure if Steve Jobs egged on his buddy Larry
Ellison to throw this sucker punch at Android but given his apoplectic
reaction to Android it sure seems likely.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I don't believe that's how these things work.

Power player A meets power player B, they discuss what they hope to do in the
near future - plans and interests. Perhaps they will have matters of mutual
interest - thats great.

Then they seperately take action, happy to know what positions and interests
the other players in the game have.

Apple and Oracle were both threatened by Android. No-one needed egging on, no-
one needed secret deals. They were open and above board about wanting to screw
over Larry and Sergey. :-)

~~~
jlgreco
I never understood why Android's Dalek would be threatening to Oracle.

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batgaijin
Also, I'd like to try and point this out again:
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/103158031/Google-Shill-List>

I don't think an article mentioning the google bloggers ever reached >10
points, at least by my googling.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Here is Oracle's corresponding disclosure:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/103156565/12-08-17-Oracle-
Disclosu...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/103156565/12-08-17-Oracle-Disclosures)

I appreciate that it probably wasn't yourself who chose to include the term
'shill' in the Google document name, but your referring to 'the Google
bloggers' is a bit misleading. To quote from Google's disclosure:

 _"Neither Google nor its counsel has paid an author, journalist, commentator,
or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case. And neither Google
nor its counsel have been involved in any quid pro quo in exchange for
coverage or articles about the issues in this case."_

Contrast this to Oracle's retaining Florian Mueller as a paid consultant when
he was backing their case on his blog.

(Edit: Clarified Oracle/Mueller relationship)

~~~
tzs
Do you have any evidence that Oracle payed Florian Mueller to promote their
case?

~~~
codeka
Google's list is basically "here's a bunch of organizations which we're a
member of or make contributions to." Some of the people within those
organizations made comments about the case.

Mueller was directly hired and paid by Oracle. Whether or not he was
specifically hired to comment on the case or not, that's quite a different
kettle of fish to simply belonging to the same organization that Oracle may
have contributed to.

Besides, it's not clear what "consulting" he has done for Oracle, but his
expertise _is_ patent law...

~~~
DannyBee
Let's be ultra clear here: Florian has no expertise in anything legal related.
He has no law degree, no formal legal training, etc.

His expertise is in _lobbying_.

~~~
tzs
I'm curious why you think it takes a law degree or formal legal training to
develop expertise in patent law.

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krichman
If only compensation to Google for Oracle's frivolous litigation were
substantial instead of negligible.

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meritt
Just to put this in perspective, Oracle has just over $30B in liquidity.

$1M / $30B = 0.0000333

That's the equivalent of having $300 in your pocket and someone demanding 1
penny.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
True, but a judge awarding damages to your counterparty hurts, even if the
amount of money is insignificant.

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therealarmen
_Google had asked for $4,030,669, but the judge cut it back, denying the part
that was for the work done by the ediscovery vendor. Truthfully, I've never
seen a bill of costs that was not cut back, but the bottom line is, Oracle has
to pay for bringing this stupid lawsuit about APIs._

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mtgx
It seems very little. I'm sure Google paid many more millions of dollars to
their lawyers in this lawsuit.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That's not what matters. Getting costs is like a TKO in boxing.

They won, the judge knows they won, but they still had to do the road running
and the no sex for a month before the match, so its a sunk cost. Lots of sex
_after_ the match does not make up for the month before.

~~~
ramblerman
Too many metaphors. I really don't understand what you're saying.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Getting costs in most civil cases is no longer about making financial
restitution - the litigants are usually so well funded it does not matter

cost awards indicate not only did the jury agree with you, but your case was
so strong the other side should be punished for bringing it. Compare to cads
where costs of a dollar are awarded.

As for sex, forswearing sex before a sporting match is / was a common means of
getting teams away from disruptive or chaotic marriages by wiley coaches, and
could be seen as a sunk cost in winning the match. Even if you were awarded
restitution after the match the costs were sunk so it does not matter if costs
are awarded or not (see the too well funded to care above)

------
mariuolo
Pocket change.

