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Google’s lawyers just got a hell of a break up against Oracle’s. The Honorable Judge William Alsup has determined that Oracle just has too many damned patent infringement claims in this case and has ordered them to cut back. How much fat did they burn? Out of an initial 132 claims, the judge has informed them that only three would be tried. The rest are to be tucked away in Oracle’s filing cabinets never to be heard from or seen again.
It’s a big blow to Oracle in their attempts to get Google to pay up for “stealing” bits of code that they have obtained (through acquisition) from Sun Microsystems. Everyone has long said that patent reform is long overdue and this Judge’s actions shows he believes just as much. At least for software, something needs to be done about companies suing each other because they weren’t the first to innovate with what they’ve claimed is theirs.
While this doesn’t mean Google will have an easy time fighting off Oracle, it does mean Android isn’t in as much trouble as was once believed. And did you think Google would let the hottest thing in mobile die because one company – who had nothing to do with Java’s inception – had a few folders saying they owned the rights to this and that? It’s no surprise that the main folks behind Java’s existence left the company shortly after the acquisition was approved.
Sun had every chance to sue Google while they were still their own entity, but they didn’t. We don’t know why they didn’t, but a piece of us likes to think that Sun recognized the value in open source software and were actually quite pleased with what Google had done with Android. Oracle’s trying to pick a fight with the biggest kid in the lunch room and we all know how that tends to turn out. I have a feeling this case won’t go on for much longer – Oracle’s morale has to be quite low following these events. [via Groklaw, Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Win
Can we please have this judge preside over any and all software patent trials from now on?
I like this idea…..
I am shocked for real. Totally didnt expect this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQ4zDT8dHo
LMAO
KO!!!
PWNED!
That’s the exact same video I was thinking of when he said about picking on the biggest kid. LOL
I think Larry Page should drop a link of this to Larry Ellison’s gmail account.
Larry Page seems like the kind of ceo who would do it too.
That’s what they get
William Alsup for president.
Patent system overhaul in 3…2..1…
> The rest [129 claims] are to be tucked away in Oracle’s filing
> cabinets never to be heard from or seen again.
Not quite accurate.
They cannot be used against Google again on this product, except they can be used against Google on new products.
There is no restriction on using these claims against others which are not party to the Oracle vs Google suit.
Good News!!
97.7%.
someone passed math, failed english. oh well, math majors unite!
also, i think this is the first post that Yarrell hasn’t said the word sprint…
First thing I was taught in math was to round up.
It’s called rounding. No one gives a shit about the .3 difference when we’re talking about something like the number of patents in a lawsuit case. The point is they threw a big ass majority of them out. This isn’t rocket science or structural engineering so the .3 difference in this context doesn’t make a difference. Why would you even say that..
And the lesson is, if you’re gonna patent infringe then u need to go big or go home. Wish this worked for everything.
GGreat judge, salute to u…
any other reason, besides there are too many? Because I don’t believe that was the ONLY reason.
And yay for google, but if they violated all those patents then they deserve to get sued for ALL of them (although I hardly believe that is the case)
But software patents need a refresh, that much I admit
Thats the thing. Hopefully the judge decided Google didnt or they were too broad. I would like to know the details of what got tossed and why.
seeeeee what had happened was……HADOKEN!
We need this judge to be unleashed on Apple and all their ridiculous suits.
Oracle threw a lot off mud to make only 3 stick.