Google Claims Victory Over Oracle, Affirms Fair Use Of Java APIs In Android
Google has beaten Oracle in what became a protracted legal battle over the use of the latter's Java APIs in the former's Android mobile operating system. Oracle had sought $9.3 billion in damages, but any hopes of winning a big payday from Google were mostly dashed on Thursday when a U.S. jury unanimously sided with Google in the dispute.
Oracle took issue with Google injecting certain parts of its Java platform into Android, the world's leading mobile OS (by market share), without a license agreement. The dispute led to a lawsuit being filed in 2010 that stated "in at least several instances, Android computer program code was also directly copied from copyrighted Oracle America code."
Two years after filing suit, the case went to trial and a jury ruled that Google did in fact infringe on Oracles Java copyrights in Android, but it was split on whether or not it fell under "fair use" as Google claimed. The matter remained unresolved until the two sides faced off in a federal district court in San Francisco earlier this month.
Though the outcome wasn't what Oracle hoped it would be, this isn't likely to be the last of it. Oracle said it found several reasons to justify an appeal and plans to go down that road.
"We strongly believe that Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market," Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement. "Oracle brought this lawsuit to put a stop to Google’s illegal behavior. We believe there are numerous grounds for appeal and we plan to bring this case back to the Federal Circuit on appeal."
In a statement of its own, Google called the verdict a "win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on ope and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products."
Oracle took issue with Google injecting certain parts of its Java platform into Android, the world's leading mobile OS (by market share), without a license agreement. The dispute led to a lawsuit being filed in 2010 that stated "in at least several instances, Android computer program code was also directly copied from copyrighted Oracle America code."
Two years after filing suit, the case went to trial and a jury ruled that Google did in fact infringe on Oracles Java copyrights in Android, but it was split on whether or not it fell under "fair use" as Google claimed. The matter remained unresolved until the two sides faced off in a federal district court in San Francisco earlier this month.
Though the outcome wasn't what Oracle hoped it would be, this isn't likely to be the last of it. Oracle said it found several reasons to justify an appeal and plans to go down that road.
"We strongly believe that Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market," Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement. "Oracle brought this lawsuit to put a stop to Google’s illegal behavior. We believe there are numerous grounds for appeal and we plan to bring this case back to the Federal Circuit on appeal."
In a statement of its own, Google called the verdict a "win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on ope and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products."
