A jury at the US District Court of Northern California has determined that Google has not infringed on six claims contained in two Oracle patents. The unanimous decision is viewed as a partial win for the search giant, however the company still faces potential damages in an earlier verdict that focused on copyright violations for a number of Java APIs.
After possibly infecting up to 1.8 percent of the Macintosh population with a click-fraud macro through a Java vulnerability, the Flashback creators won't get paid despite their efforts, reports Computerworld. Following a coordinated security effort between antivirus vendors and security experts, remote malicious orders were blocked or prevented from effecting an estimated peak 600,000 infected computers. Apple joined the fray late, but provided patches and a removal tool for the malware.
Oracle and Google continued the debate over how to proceed with the ongoing Java patent infringement suit. During the discussion and filing with the Judge William Alsup, Oracle presented a document summarizing why it is entitled to Google's profits from the case -- "super shady" contractors from Noser in Google's Android team. Google disputes the relevance of the filing.
It appears the Google versus Oracle legal skirmish regarding Java patentability is beginning to wind down. At the beginning of today's hearings, Judge William Alsup granted Oracle's request for a judgement as a matter of law (JMOL) in regards to eight files copied directly into Android from Oracle's code base, and awarded an additional copyright infringement to Oracle. The matters of "fair use" and willful violation have yet to be decided.
The jury assigned to the Oracle versus Google lawsuit has returned a partial verdict. On the matter of API copyright infringement, Google has been found to have violated the sequence, structure, and organization of 37 Java API copyrights. However, whether or not the infringement was fair use remains to be decided, as the jury was unable to break through a previously reported impasse on the matter. Judge Alsop is not waiting for motions from either side, and is immediately moving forward with the next phase, the patent phase, of the trial.
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.
Apple is now preparing a pair of Java 6 runtime updates for OS X 10.6 and 10.7 that will mark the last Apple-custom versions of Java, handing over all future development and responsibility for Java on the Mac platform directly to Oracle. Apple had already stopped shipping a default version of Java with new Macs beginning with the release of Lion last summer, but had made in-house versions available to Lion users as well as continued supporting the Snow Leopard version.
The jury in the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit has reached a partial verdict on three of four questions that they were required to consider as part of the copyright liability phase of the trial. The foreman said that a minority of the jury felt that more time would be helpful in reaching agreement on all four questions. Judge Alsup pointed out that the jurors did not need to reach a unanimous agreement on the fourth question, but the foreman told the Judge the impasse was on one of the three questions (embedded below) that required full agreement.
After 20 hours of deliberations spread over four days, the jury responsible for the Google versus Oracle Java court battle has so far failed to reach a decision. A question posed to Judge William Alsup posed more questions as to the timely resolution of the trial -- a note passed to the judge by the jury asked what would happen if they couldn't reach a unanimous decision.
Java pioneer James Gosling has criticized Google for the tactics it used in going without a Java license for Android. He argued that, despite former Sun chief Jonathan Schwartz saying Sun couldn't sue Google, the decision to skip a license still hurt the company. Google "totally slimed" Sun, and even Schwartz was tolerating the action rather than endorsing it.
Following the disruption caused by an unpatched vulnerability in Mac versions of Java SE 6 that played havoc with the Mac community for several weeks until Apple finally posted the patch, Oracle has announced that it will take the lead in supplying both Java SE 7 and its runtime environment to Mac users who need it. For developers, the Java SE 7 Update 4 and its JDK as well as JavaFX 2.1 are both available now for download, marking Oracle's first direct delivery) for Mac OS X.
Oracle and Google both rested their cases in the first of three trial phases for Oracle's lawsuit against Google over Android. The two sides shied away from the larger revelations and accusations, with Google mostly relying on expert testimony from Duke University's Dr. Owen Astrachan that portrayed the Java programming interfaces as basic fundamentals for programming rather than a copyrightable form. While Google could have reordered the structure of its custom code for Android, using a structure like Sun's and making the actual implementation different helped ease developers into the OS while purportedly having "completely different" code.
Oracle may have run into an obstacle in its lawsuit against Google during testimony by former CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Despite Oracle's own CEO Larry Ellison being unsure if Java was free to use for Android's framework, Schwartz said the programming interfaces were always cleared for free use and weren't proprietary. Sun didn't sue Google over its early Android use as it didn't feel it "had any grounds" to take action, he testified.
Oracle saw a significant setback Wednesday after Judge William Alsup ruled (below) that the company couldn't use a revived Java patent against Google. He told the database firm that, as the trial had already started before the patent had been put back into effect, Oracle couldn't use the claim as part of the proceedings. If Oracle had been given permission, it would inherently bias the trial by forcing Google to defend against claims it was told wouldn't be factors.
In testimony that appeared to be crafted specifically to downplay any revenue generated by Android, Google's mobile head Andy Rubin told prosecutors in the ongoing trial with Oracle over Java licensing that the system exists mainly to "make it easier to access Google services" and that he did not expect the OS would contribute significantly to Google's ad revenues. While Google makes around $2.5 billion in mobile ad revenue every year, a substantial portion of that comes from iOS advertising rather than Android ads.
Google during its own turn at Oracle's lawsuit over Java patents saw its executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt explain why the company hadn't paid for a Java license for Android. During the platform's development, a pre-Oracle Sun had asked for $30 million to $50 million, which Google would have been willing to pay, Schmidt said in testimony. The issue was instead one of control, as Google wanted to determine what Sun techniques were contributed to its source.
Google's mobile VP Andy Rubin gave testimony on Monday in Oracle's lawsuit that Java was likely copyrighted, raising the possibility Google owed royalties for Android. He wouldn't link the copyrighting to Sun, but he agreed with an Oracle attorney that a 2006 e-mail had said the java.lang app programming language (APIs) "were copyrighted," according to CNET's account of the conversation. Rubin did acknowledge a statement earlier that same day that he didn't think Google could go ahead without permission from Sun.
Oracle may get a significant weapon in its ongoing lawsuit against Google over Java use in Android. In an unusual Sunday legal brief caught by Florian Mueller, Oracle told presiding Judge William Alsup that a US patent's rejection, which had lead to a streamlined case, had several of its claims reinstated. The notice didn't constitute a formal notice of action.
The Google versus Oracle fight continued in court today, with self-titled "Chief Java Architect" Joshua Bloch's recorded testimony stating that it was "likely" some code he wrote for Android was the same as Sun's Java code. Nine lines of the code in question are duplicated in Google's Timsort.java file from 2007 that are also found verbatim from Sun's Arrays.java code, written in 1997.
Google engineer Tim Lindholm used testimony in Oracle's ongoing lawsuit over Java in Android to deny claims that form a cornerstone of the complaint. He denied that a potentially incriminating 2010 e-mail where he said "we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need" was an acknowledgment that Google knew it had violated Oracle's copyrights and patents. He instead claimed that was "not a license from anybody," not Oracle or anyone else.
Google CEO Larry Page in a second day of testimony at trial made the unusual remark that he was "not sure" if Android was a critical asset for Google. While it was "very important," he emphasized the company's sometimes understated view that Android was ultimately a vehicle for Google services like ads, not an end into itself. The mobile OS was developed partly in response to earlier Java devices, he said: even with 100 phones to try, none of them would use Google's services properly.
Both the CEOs of Google and Oracle testified on Tuesday in the just-started trial for Oracle's lawsuit over Java in Android with statements that may have returned some of the balance to Google. While expected, Google co-founder Larry Page insisted Google "didn't do anything wrong" in using Java. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had brought the accusations of copying forward in a dinner meeting, but Oracle had never followed through with examples until the lawsuit, possibly because there "wasn't very strong evidence," according to Page.
Oracle formally kicked off the trial in its copyright and patent lawsuit against Google by citing telling Google e-mail. One of the plaintiff's lawyers, Michael Jacobs, referred to messages from Google engineers and executives that the company likely needed a license from Oracle to keep implementing Java in Android. The attorney saw this as evidence that Google knew it had done something wrong and simply hoped to hold out.
Apple late Friday followed up its anti-Flashback Java update with its own dedicated Flashback removal tool. The tool finds the "most common variants" of the exploit and will either say if it found and pulled any variant. If needed, it will ask for a full reboot to wipe the malware entirely.
Apple fulfilled promises of a cure for a rare Mac exploit on Thursday evening by posting another key Java update. Java for OS X 2012-003 for Lion owners, and Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 8, both actively remove the "most common variants" of Flashback. Loading the update automatically scans for Flashback and, if it's found, lets the user know that it was pulled.
The Flashback malware, which has been seen to have affected as much as one percent of the Mac user base (the highest percentage of any threat so far), has finally received an official KnowledgeBase article by Apple that explains how the Trojan works, recommends how to avoid being at risk, and says the company is working on a Flashback detection and removal tool. The brief report also mentions Apple's efforts to disable the Trojan's effectiveness by disabling the servers the malware attempts to contact.
Apple recently asked a web registrar, Reggi.ru, to shut down a domain belonging to the Russian security firm Dr. Web, the latter company's CEO has revealed. Boris Sharov says the registrar informed him about the request on Monday. Apple's reasoning was that the domain was being used as a command-and-control server for computers infected with the Flashback Trojan. Sharov notes, though that the domain is actually hosting a "sinkhole," a spoofed C&C server used to monitor computers linked in the Flashback botnet.
Apple is pushing out two new patches to Mac users via Software Update. Of these the most critical is Java for OS X 2012-002, which actually replaces 2012-001, released earlier this week. Apple rarely outright removes an earlier update; 001 may have had a critical bug or security flaw that was somehow missed in a rush put out the code, which was meant to combat the Flashback Trojan.
Apple has released an updated Java version for 10.6.x Snow Leopard and made available an updated optional Java distribution for Lion, both coming just one day after warnings of a new version of the Flashback malware that can exploit a Java vulnerability. Although not confirmed in the public release notes, the update patches the vulnerability, bringing it up-to-date with Oracle's own patched version, 1.6.0_31.
Judge Paul Grewal signaled Monday that one last attempt at mandated settlement talks between Google and Oracle had failed. The two had encountered another "irreconcilable impasse" and wouldn't be attempting to negotiate a peace on the Android patent dispute before the trial started on April 16. In a memo, Judge Grewal gave an exasperated tone and concluded that the case would have to reach its final conclusion.
Yet another new variant of the Flashback Trojan for the Mac has been discovered in the wild, says security firm F-Secure. Called Flashback.K, the new version is said to be dangerous not only because it can infect a Mac without an admin password, but because it relies on a Java vulnerability that has so far gone unfixed in OS X, even though Oracle itself has closed the hole. Apple distributes Mac Java updates on its own timetable.
A joint filing by Oracle and Google late Tuesday has revealed that Google offered to pay a per-device royalty on Android devices. Following earlier damages discussions, Google had offered paying 0.5 percent royalties on every device for one Oracle patent until it runs out in December, and 0.15 percent on another only expiring in 2018. It also offered to pay $2.8 million in back payments from 2011 and earlier.
Oracle and Google may be pressed into settling a lawsuit over Java patents faster after Judge Paul Grewal ordered more settlement talks. Despite having dramatically lowered damages earlier in the week, at least Google's mobile VP Andy Rubin and Oracle CFO Safra Catz would have to meet before April 9. The sides had to choose a date and were encouraged to be as flexible as possible.
Requests for Oracle to lower its damage requests in its lawsuit against Google have pushed its claims on Android damages far lower than it originally wanted. Having wanted figures that approached $2.6 billion, it has come to the view that the total damages it's owed are less than $50 million. Even when using a method that favors Oracle, the two patents and group of copyrights would claim damages of $46.6 million.
Apple saw an unusually widescale, comprehensive growth in its share of the web in February, NetApplications showed on Thursday. On the desktop, it bounced back to near an all-time high at 6.9 percent, a level seen in October. Its mobile share followed suit, going up almost exactly seven points to 60.6 percent.
A new variant of the Flashback Trojan is infecting Macs, says security firm Intego. Dubbed Flashback.G, the malware is reported to use three different methods to try and infect a Mac. The first two involve Java vulnerabilities, which are stopped if a computer's Java installation is up to date. If a system has an outdated version of Java however, the Trojan may be able to install itself without a chance to intervene.
The long-running lawsuit between Oracle and Google over patents relating to Android has been significantly revised by plaintiff Oracle.The company dropped a key point of contention in the 476 patent, claim 14, related to Java. Google has previously asked a judge to file a motion for summary judgment of invalidity of claim 14 and the USPTO ruled to toss it out late last year so the patent would get thrown out anyhow. Oracle explained it dropped the claim in order to streamline the case.
Google on Monday lost an appeal trying to keep an incriminating e-mail out of Oracle's lawsuit over Android patents and copyrights. The court rejected Google's view that engineer Tim Lindholm's message, which told top staff that they needed a Java license for Android, was subject to attorney-client privilege. Lindholm had been talking to regular Google employees and not lawyers, the federal appeals court said, making it a valid part of discovery.
DSPanel has utilized Java to create multi-platform native versions of its Performance Canvas Studio for Mac OS X, Linux and Unix as well as its original Windows platform. The suite is the company's flagship product for business intelligence (BI) correlation of various data sources and is also accessible on mobile devices via the web. The program is "multi-tenant" meaning databases can be set up to serve multiple clients, organizations or users to access the data.
Oracle's delayed trial against Google received a more definitive date from Judge William Alsup on Wednesday. The trial will start no earlier than the morning of March 19, roughly five months after the target date. The Northern District of California court had already ruled that the trial would be split into three parts dealing with copyright, then patents, and finally all remaining issues.
In spite of its device share, Android is losing ground in terms of actual use online, NetApplications found on New Year's Day. Android slipped to 16.3 percent of mobile web share in December, or the same share it had in September. Unusually, most of the loss came to otherwise shrinking platforms: Java ME bounced back to get just under 21.3 percent, Symbian returned to 5.8 percent, and even the BlackBerry recovered slightly to 3.5 percent.
The US Patent and Trademark Office gave Google a rare break late last week in further scaling back Oracle's limited patent claims in a lawsuit over Android's code. A total of 17 of the 21 claims of the patent were rejected, including one claim that Oracle had been leveling against Google. Oracle has until February 20 to challenge the rejection.
British Telecom has continued its legal campaigns in technology by suing Google for allegedly infringing on its patents in an action filed on Thursday. The Delaware-based complaint, caught by Florian Mueller, accused Google of violating six patents for telecoms and navigation through its development of Android, Google Maps, and related services like AdMob, Google+, Places, and even basic search. BT considers the supposed violations "willful" and is asking for tripled damages as a result.
Recent Google intern and soon-to-be Microsoft intern Andrew Munn has given an explanation as to why many Android devices are considerably laggier and less responsive than iOS or Windows Phone devices. While iOS puts graphics drawing as a real-time priority and lets users manage which priorities can be rendered in the background, Android treats the interface as a normal priority. As a result, Android devices can often bog down when they're trying to conduct other tasks at the same time.
Judge William Alsup on Tuesday threw out some of Oracle's damage claims against Google for allegedly violating Java copyrights and patents with Android. He gave an initial favor to five of Google's eight objections for a tentative order that would go ahead unchanged on December 20 if there were no objections. Among the objections were potentially broad strokes in lumping all patents together for damages.
Apple has quietly posted a Java SE 6 update for Lion (version 1.6.0_29), as well as updating the Java runtime for Snow Leopard to the same version. The release fixes multiple security vulnerabilities that exist in Java 1.6.0_26.
Pioneer in an unusual break from hardware unveiled what could be a universal equivalent to Apple's Siri for natural-language voice. Zypr provides a web-based but native-friendly programming interface that lets apps take commands that usually apply to specific services, such as social networking from Facebook or Twitter, INRIX traffic, AccuWeather, Slacker Radio, and Yelp place ratings. The method allows combining services and lets data port over from service to service.
Judge William Alsup gave Google a brief reprieve Wednesday after he delayed Oracle's lawsuit over Java in Android until 2012. The proposed shift moved it past the original Halloween start date to sometime that would "not be in 2011." A first trial phase would focus on copyright disputes, while the second would focus on patents, and a third would cover all remaining issues, such as the ultimate damages.
Oracle obtained a key ruling Thursday after Judge William Alsup determined that it was allowed to use internal Google e-mail admitting patent problems in Android as evidence in its lawsuit over Java copyrights and patents. Alsup determined that Google had "failed to identify any aspect" of Oracle's demand that was either mistaken or illegal. Attorney-client privilege didn't cover the messages, he said.
Both Google and Oracle will have to bring out some of their top current and former executives to testify in the ongoing lawsuit over Android's use of Java patents. Along with Google's Larry Page, its chairman and one-time Sun CTO Eric Schmidt is also being called by Oracle and fill in details on negotiations with Sun and later Oracle over Java as well as the business strategy for Android. Java pioneer and recent Google worker James Gosling is being asked to talk about Java's invention and patents, and the author of a potentially condemning Google e-mail, Tim Lindholm, is being asked in hopes of pushing him to admit Google ignored needed patent deals.
