A California federal court, via a jury decision ruled that Google did not infringe on patents from Oracle, when they developed their Android operating system.
After a week long deliberation, the jury in the Google and Oracle patent infringement case returned a verdict unanimously that Google did not in any way infringe Oracle’s Java patents. After this verdict, the judge dismissed the jurors, and the third phase of the trial, which would have covered the damages if Google had been found guilty.
Google Inc had admitted to using Java in its mobile’s operating system, but argued that the pieces that it used were freely available to the market.
Google responded to the verdict positively saying that the win was a great victory for Google, and the Android ecosystem which would have been under threat if it had lost the patent suit.
Oracle also responded to the loss, by saying that they had presented sufficient evidence that Google had broken up Java for its own use. Oracle also added that even with the loss, they would continue to uphold the virtues of Java, and protect it.
A partial verdict had been delivered earlier in the month during the first phase of the case. The jury had concluded that Google had in some way infringed on Java patents from Oracle, but a deadlock had ensued, on whether Google’s assertions that copying the Java components, constituted fair use.
Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) which is headed by Larry Ellison had sued Google way back in 2010 over the use of Java programming language and software. Oracle gained control of Java when it bought Sun Microsystems in the same year.
If Oracle had won, it would have gotten billions in settlement claims from Google.
This trial between these two Silicon Valley Tech giants has been quite popular and it has shown the wave of litigation that is currently sweeping the valley between large tech firms, and most related to intellectual property rights.
Oracle which has its headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA had began the lawsuit with many patents, but by the time the case reached trial, the patents infringed on, had reduced to two.
Google had stated publicly that some firms such as Oracle were trying to undercut Android by placing baseless patent litigations.
Android is a system that is offered free to phone makers, and it has grown to be the most used Smartphone platform in the world.
