Jury Mulling Android Case Appears Unsteady
A note from the jury in the Oracle-Google copyright infringement trial late Thursday signaled trouble for a verdict of any kind in the landmark case, but the tables could turn again Friday.
Indicating some trouble ahead, the jurors asked what would happen if they cannot reach a unanimous decision. U.S. District Judge William Alsup told the jury to continue deliberating to reach a consensus on as many points as possible. He also indicated that if the jury cannot reach a verdict on the copyright portion of the trial, he would begin the patent-infringement phase.
Oracle is suing Google for using portions of Java source code, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010, in its Android operating system without permission or license. Google does not dispute that it used some of Java’s application programming interfaces (APIs), but claims that Java is open-source and that its use of the APIs was transformative and therefore not a violation of copyright.