Oracle Suffers Major Setback in Google Case
newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com
A federal judge dismissed Oracle Corp’s copyright claims against Google Inc for parts of the Java programming language, knocking out Oracle’s prime vehicle for damages in a high stakes legal battle over smartphones.
The ruling on Thursday from a San Francisco federal judge is the latest blow to Oracle in its lawsuit against Google. It is one of several intellectual property cases between tech giants over smartphones and tablets using Google’s Android operating system.
Apple is scheduled for trial in U.S. courts against Google’s Motorola Mobility unit in June, and against Samsung in July. However, Oracle’s lawsuit against Google, filed in 2010, was the first in the smartphone wars to go before a jury.
The case examined whether computer language that connects programs and operating systems - known as application programming interfaces, or APIs - can be copyrighted. In a trial that began last month, Oracle claimed Google’s Android tramples on its rights to the structure of 37 Java APIs.
Google argued it did not violate Oracle’s patents and that Oracle cannot copyright APIs for Java, an open-source or publicly available software language. Android is the best-selling smartphone operating system around the world.