Oracle's request for fair use ruling denied, not much else left
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 10th May 2012 05:00 UTC
Legal "[...] despite Oracle pointing out the commercial success of Android - which would tend to weigh against a finding of fair use - it was clear that Judge Alsup wasn't inclined to side with the company. The judge even scolded Oracle counsel Michael Jacobs when he first argued his case, pointing out that the company's legal team had insisted on a jury trial and that 'now we got their verdict and you want something else'." Someone must be having a bad day.
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Comment by cyrilleberger
by cyrilleberger on Thu 10th May 2012 06:28 UTC
cyrilleberger
Member since:
2006-02-01

Funnily, how Mueller sees it as a victory for Oracle ;)

To be honest, it is a stalemate. The point that everybody agreed on was ruled like it should, aka, that *if* APIs are copyrighted, then Google infringed on. However, the game changing questions (API Copyright-ability and fair use) are still unanswered. Putting the judge in a tricky position, the way forward is:

1) make a ruling on API Copyright-ability, but obviously, the judge did not want to make such a ruling, but now he has too
2) and if API are copyright-able, does fair use rule apply to them

If the judge decide against API Copyright-ability, then Oracle loses on all accounts (except for a 5-lines functions). In the other case, someone has to answer the fair use question, Oracle considered the judge could do it, while Google argued that only a jury can rule over it. It seems that the judge is siding with Google, however, the current jury is not going to answer that question. From a legal (and storyline) point of view, it would be interesting for the judge to rule on API copyright-ability, just to know what happen next ;) (in any case, I don't want to be Judge Alsup on this one).

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