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Google says Oracle should not get piece of Android

Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:30am EDT

* Ellison expected to take witness stand later Tuesday

* Google argues Oracle trying to get in on Android's success

By Dan Levine and Edwin Chan

SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 (Reuters) - Oracle is trying to obtain a share of Android by asserting its intellectual property even though it had nothing to do with the development of the smartphone operating system, an attorney for Google said in court.

Opening statements between Oracle Corp and Google Inc continued on Tuesday at the high-stakes trial in a San Francisco federal courtroom. Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison is also likely to take the stand later Tuesday.

Oracle sued Google in August 2010 over patent and copyright claims for the Java programming language. According to Oracle, Google's Android operating system tramples on its intellectual property rights to Java, which it acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010.

Google says it does not violate Oracle's patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java. The trial before U.S. District Judge William Alsup is expected to last at least eight weeks.

Google attorney Robert Van Nest acknowledged on Tuesday that Google executives had once negotiated for a potential partnership with Sun to develop Android.

"When those negotiations failed, Google engineers built Android on their own without any Sun technology whatsoever," Van Nest said.

On Monday, Oracle attorney Michael Jacobs had said Google took copyrighted Java "blueprints" to harness the creative power of millions of Java software developers, so they then could write applications for Android. However, Google never obtained the proper license, he said.

"You can't just step on someone's IP because you have a good business reason for it," Jacobs said.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc, 10-3561.
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Comments (2)
the_piano_man wrote:
This crap has SCO and Daryl McBride written all over it. Any one remember that bs? Open source software, and the GNU software is here to stay. Get your slimy hands off of it, Oracle. You let the GNU / Open source community do all the work and then try to grab it in court, when you see it is making money. You all bashed Linux and GNU Unix for years , and now that it has come of age you want it all. Screw you. You will eventually go down with the rest of the proprietary software companies who want to hoard other people’s work and make a fast buck from it. Most of the Java language is licensed under the GNU general public license from Sun Microsystems. You rich pigs just get richer and then want the whole world for yourself. Get real. Jerks. I can’t believe this crap is filling up our courts.

Apr 17, 2012 11:54am EDT  --  Report as abuse
ProfScarecrow wrote:
For all the stuff Google provides at no out of pocket cost (basically all of their stuff and anybody else’s stuff they can get their hands on) so you will use their browser and sites to rack up millions and billions in ad revenue for themselves. The guise of “do no evil” is wearing thin. I’ve really developed a mistrust of them and their image. They mistakenly pulled data from Safari after announcing they would stop such practices… their Google maps mistakingly pulling wifi into from homes as it prowled neighborhoods… wanting to scan world libraries into web-accessible sites (forget author\artist licensing there too)… they will seemingly stoop to no level to give it away and sneak in their ad revenues. I guess this move doesn’t surprise me. Next time you complain about Apple, remember they pay artists and try to enforce IP rights. You don’t get it for free from Apple but it works and all the artists and participants make something vs stealing from others and skimming the ad revenues off the back-side.

Apr 17, 2012 12:18pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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