Oracle demands $9.3bn from Google over Java APIs in Android

Next round in long-running court action due to kick-off in April

Oracle is demanding damages of $9.3 billion from Google in its intellectual property dispute against the company over the Android operating system.
The demand is the latest chapter in the long-running disagreement between the two companies over the Dalvik Java virtual machine (JVM) used to run apps on the Android operating system up to version 4.4, also known as KitKat.

Oracle has argued that although Java is open source the APIs required to use it aren't. Google is perfectly entitled to use Java in Android, but Google must pay Oracle a generous licence fee for doing so.
Oracle filed suit against Google in August 2010 and Dalvik was subsequently replaced by the Android Runtime, which compiles Android apps to native machine code upon installation, circumventing Oracle's Java API intellectual property claims.

The court case, however, goes on. 

The arguments against Oracle's stance in the industry have been far-reaching, including claims that it could set a precedent that would wipe the premise of open-source software off the map, at least as we know it today.

Notwithstanding this, however, Oracle has claimed that Android has "destroyed" the Java market, while Google maintains that APIs constitute "fair use". Google has won twice, and Oracle has successfully appealed twice, making way for the current action.
Oracle wants $475m damages and an $8.83bn profit share of Android from 2010 up to Lollipop. Marshmallow, the current version of the OS, is not included in the action.
Google has said that even if it is guilty, the code infringement of 37 APIs represents a tiny amount of the overall codebase, and the figure it has in mind is more like $100 million at most. It will nevertheless fight tooth and nail against it anyway.
A pre-trial hearing is set for 27 April and the trial itself will start on 9 May.
Google has already lost a battle to take the matter to the Supreme Court, despite feeling that judges in the earlier trial didn't understand the subject matter on which they had to rule.

As ever, there is no guarantee that whatever decision is made will be the final chapter. Appeal and counter-appeal will continue for some time before US law is actually clarified. 

Oracle's victory over Google Android could kill the software industry 

EVERYTHING you've ever coded could now be in breach of US law. However melodramatic that sounds, it's chillingly accurate.
The recent ruling clearing Oracle to pursue Google for lines of its Java code hidden at the heart of its all-conquering Android mobile operating system spells big trouble for every software developer who has ever relied upon supposedly open-source code in their own software.

The recent appeal overturned a 2012 ruling in favour of Google's right to the use of open-source code. As a result, Oracle is now free to chase Google over royalties for the billions of devices around the world that work because the Java APIs, which the web firm assumed were open source, are now considered protected under copyright.
Although there is bound to be more legal wrangling before the decision becomes final, the precedent set by the case should send a cold shiver down the spine of every developer who has ever taken advantage of the swathes of open-source code available as software interface APIs.
Oracle's successful argument is that while you are welcome to use its code, the APIs, the interfaces that allow it to function with your own, are subject to copyright. Therefore, if anything worth pursuing comes of your own coding project, Oracle owns a slice.
Oracle argues that an API is more than just a functional piece of code devoid of creativity and therefore is copyrightable as is, and therefore anyone using the code to their own ends is infringing the database firm's copyright.
Simply put, the ruling sets the precedent that you are welcome to use the open-source code, it's free, but you have to pay to access it in the first place. It's a little bit like going to a lending library, but being charged a hefty rental fee to borrow a book.
Google's response showed it isn't ready to roll over yet. It said, "We're disappointed by this ruling, which sets a damaging precedent for computer science and software development, and are considering our options."
Indeed Google's options include requesting that the appeal be reconsidered by the entire appeals court instead of the three judge panel that overturned the original ruling. Google also has the eventual option of seeking an appeal to the US Supreme Court.
As things stand, the next hearing will be on remand back to the US District Court to decide if Google's embedding of Java code is warranted as Fair Use, or whether damages and royalties, which might be considerable, are payable to Oracle.
Even if Google's use of the Java APIs in Android is found to be Fair Use, the demands made by Oracle could still impact innovation across the software development industry. Many of the best ideas come from bedroom developers taking advantage of open-source APIs. Now those same developers might not be able to use those same lines of code without a team of lawyers on standby.
But it's worse than that. In the IT industry, everything connects. If Oracle's lawyers can establish that the Java APIs are protected by copyright, then so can anyone's lawyers. If you wanted to find a holiday destination, find out the weather, book a rental car, renew your passport and learn some basic phrases, you could be interfacing with 15 to 20 APIs. If each of the copyright holders decides to charge for or forbid access to those APIs, then nothing will work. The whole software industry - indeed the whole internet - will fail.
The fundamentals here are simple - either something is open source, or it isn't. Oracle seems to be trolling for reparations over code that it didn't even develop, but rather bought via its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, merely because there is opportunity, and that goes against the very spirit of open source. Because the appeals court judges that wrote the ruling failed to understand the repercussions of what they've done, it could decimate the IT industry if left to stand.

Oracle claims Google has used Android to 'destroy' the Java market 
World's smallest violin discovered at Mountain View offices
ORACLE HAS ADDED more allegations to its court filing against Google, claiming that it has "destroyed" the market for Java.
The case stems from the use of Java libraries in the original Android operating system design. While these are open source, a clueless judge ruled that the APIs allowing third parties to use the libraries are subject to copyright and it is those libraries which Google is accused of infringing.

As regular readers will know, we have labelled this what in journalistic circles we like to refer to as 'a heap of old horse shit' that sets a dangerous precedent for the whole industry. However, Oracle is continuing to glove-slap for satisfaction.
The latest papers filed, which Google is yet to contest the addition of, work best if dictated with a single violin playing sombrely in the background.
"Although all of these new Android versions are dependent upon the infringing Java code, applications written for these new Android versions are not compatible with the Java platform, because they do not run on the Java platform or on devices implementing the Java platform," the filing said.
"Similarly, applications written for the Java platform do not run on the versions of Android made available since October 2010. Accordingly, given the widespread dominance Android has achieved with its continued unauthorised use of the 37 Java API packages over the past few years, Android has now irreversibly destroyed Java’s fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system by breaking the 'write once, run anywhere' principle on which Java was built.
"Google’s increasing domination of the mobile device market with Android, and its continuing failure and refusal to make Android compatible with the Java platform, has destroyed the potential value of a licensed derivative version of the Java platform in the mobile device market."
Cutting to the chase, what Oracle is basically saying is that Google used them, then spat them out, leaving them unappealing to others, which makes them sound like a fallen woman in a Thomas Hardy novel.
The defence is likely to be that Java is an ageing, exploit-ridden system that has to be regularly patched up, and that forking from it was the best thing to do for customers. But, as ever with these epic battles, it's going to be down to who has the best lawyers. Or the biggest yacht.
Oracle argues that the meteoric rise of the Android platform, and its market dominance, based on thousands of lines of Java code and yielding billions in ad revenues, means that the Ellison yachting fund is due a top-up.
Google has consistently claimed that, even if the APIs are copyrightable, 'fair use' is at play. Twice the court has sided with Google, and twice the decision has been overturned on appeal by old men who probably smoke cigars but think that the World Wide Web gives you cancer.

Appeals court rules Google infringed Oracle's Java copyright in Android 
If at first you don't succeed, troll and troll again

THE UNITED STATES Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has remanded the copyright infringement lawsuit between Oracle and Google back to the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The action was brought in 2010 over copyright to the portions of code in the Android mobile operating system that are based on Java APIs owned by Oracle.
The move paves the way for Oracle to further pursue its demands that Google pay for the API code, which US District Court Judge William Alsup had previously ruled at trial was not copyright protectable.
"We conclude that a set of commands to instruct a computer to carry out desired operations may contain expression that is eligible for copyright protection," Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kathleen O'Malley wrote.
The ruling could be a game-changer for the US software industry, with programmers facing uncertainty about whether they can create inter-operable software using APIs, and possibly having to consult teams of lawyers just in case there are trolls under the bridge.
Google understandably is not pleased. A spokesperson told The INQUIRER in a statement, "We're disappointed by this ruling, which sets a damaging precedent for computer science and software development, and are considering our options."
Oracle brought the case against Google, seeking $2.2bn for its alleged share of the world's biggest mobile operating system. Google offered to settle, but Oracle turned down the deal for $2.8m, leaving it with a $4m legal bill after the court found in Google's favour in 2012.

Although things went quiet for a while, save for a report that court papers showed Android as being less open than it claimed, Oracle's appeal continued and led to this ruling.

While Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will doubtless be delighted with a result that might net the company a large judgment, and let it join Microsoft in earning a cut of every Android device sold, the motives of a man who ditched his keynote at his own conference last year to go play with boats remain a bit mysterious.

Credit to computing