Google v. Oracle judge reads part of sealed financial docs
updated 05:10 pm EDT, Sun May 6, 2012
Large losses by Android group taken in FY2010
Judge William Alsup unexpectedly read portions from a previously-sealed Googledocument during a Thursday compensation hearing, a part of the company's ongoing legal battle with Oracle. While not disclosing specific figures, Alsup revealed that Google's Android mobile platform lost money in every quarter of 2010. Google does not release financial information about Android.
Oracle claims that Google should not be able to subtract Android losses from any kind of fiduciary reward. Google's counterclaim contends that Oracle misrepresented financial data, and should not gain from the misrepresentation. The still-deliberating jury was not present for this portion of the hearing.
The Oracle v. Google suit began in August of 2010, with Oracle claiming that Android infringes on intellectual property rights held by Oracle. Google's claim is that they needed no license to utilize parts of an open-source language. The first phase of the trial ended on April 27th, when both Oracle and Google wrapped up their copyright arguments. During the trial, Google's "Chief Java Architect" admitted to likely copying nine lines of Oracle Java code for Android, but defended himself by saying inadvertently reusing an algorithm he designed nearly a decade prior was good engineering practice.
