Jury: Google didn’t infringe on Oracle patents
May 24, 2012 No CommentsSource: Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal jury ruled Wednesday that Google didn’t infringe on Oracle’s patents when the Internet search leader developed its popular Android software for mobile devices.
Wednesday’s verdict comes about two weeks after the same jury, with two additional members, failed to agree on a pivotal issue in Oracle’s copyright-infringement case against Google. As a result, Google Inc. faced maximum damages of only $150,000 — not the hundreds of millions of dollars that Oracle Corp. was seeking.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup dismissed the jury, skipping the damages phase that had been originally scheduled. Had Oracle been able to pursue damages, confidential documents detailing how much money Google makes from its Android software might have become public.
The outcome ends, for now, a showdown pitting two Silicon Valley titans in a courtroom duel that brought Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page to the witness stand during the 5½-week trial.
In vindicating Google, the jury delivered a humbling setback to Oracle. The world’s leading maker of database software had accused Google of building Android around Oracle’s copyrighted and patented Java programming system. Oracle inherited the rights to Java in a $7.3 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010.