

Oracle accepts $0 in damages from Google, moves toward appeal - Bill_Dimm
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/oracle-accepts-0-in-damages-from-google-moves-toward-appeal/

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mparlane
Does that mean Google accepted they infringed by paying the $0? I'm not
joking.

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wmf
The judge and jury found that Google infringed in a few cases. Now Google can
either appeal or not but I don't think they've said whether they plan to.

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zerohp
Google has nothing to appeal. They were found to infringe on 7 lines of code
and a small set of test files. Both parties agreed during trial that this
infringement has no monetary value.

Oracle can appeal the judges ruling on API copyright. If they succeed then
Google will likely push for a new trial because the jury didn't return a
decision on fair use.

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beedogs
The ruling was pretty airtight, though, from all accounts.

Why would Oracle pursue what ultimately will be a tremendous waste of
resources for them and for everybody else? (This is a bit of a rhetorical
question.)

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Alterlife
Honest question:

Is the ruling really 'pretty airtight' ? ie: does Oracle really have no chance
at winning on an appeal?

~~~
fpgeek
The ruling that the APIs were not copyrightable was directly tied to the
details of the specific APIs in this case. Among other things, this is because
existing Ninth Circuit caselaw was unfavorable to an absolute bar on API
copyrights, so Judge Alsup couldn't easily rule on the law independently of
the case in front of him. To make an analogy, he could have found a phone
number or address uncopyrightable as a general rule, but to decide if a copied
portion of a book is copyrightable he has to look at what's in it (both the
portion and the book as a whole).

Appeals courts aren't supposed to overturn factual findings unless they are
"clearly erroneous". Judge Alsup was careful with his findings and he has
experience with programming that the selected appeals-court judges are
unlikely to have. While it is theoretically possible they'd second-guess his
factual findings, it would be a very big stretch. And if you take his factual
findings as-is, it becomes pretty hard to challenge his legal interpretation
of those facts (especially since none of the coverage I've read suggests that
his legal reasoning was unusual or controversial).

It isn't impossible for Oracle to win on appeal, but their changes are slim.
Beyond that, if they win on appeal all they get is a do-over on the API
copyright question (and it is unclear what the parameters of that do-over
would be). Given that we know that the jury deadlocked at 9-3 in favor of
Google on fair use (and was 11-1 in Google's favor earlier in the
deliberations), even if Oracle got their do-over the odds are against them
winning anything meaningful from it.

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iand
Also, it's important that the Judge instructed the jury to assume APIs were
copyrightable. So even if the API copyright judgement is reversed the jury's
decisions still stand.

~~~
rst
The jury made no decision on fair use, and the judge declared a mistrial on
that portion of the case. His subsequent ruling moots the whole issue (no
copyright, no infringement) --- but if that ruling were reversed, there would
be a new trial on at least fair use. And IIRC, Google has indicated that
they'd want a new trial on all copyright matters at that point.

