Oracle

Oracle recalls Google engineer in trial's patent phase

SAN FRANCISCO--After previously testifying in the copyrights phase of Oracle v. Google in April, Google engineer Tim Lindholm was recalled to the stand at the U.S. District Court of Northern California here this morning as Oracle's first witness in phase two of the trial covering patent infringement.

Representing Oracle, Fred Norton of Boies, Schiller & Flexner repeatedly asked Lindholm questions along the lines of whether he was the only person responsible for work on Java virtual machines and related innovations, following up with the implication that Lindholm certainly couldn't have been the only one. Lindholm always concurred … Read more

Legal experts decipher Oracle-Google verdict

The fact that a jury couldn't make up its mind about a key question in Oracle's copyright-infringement case against Google could turn out to be good news for Google and the Android development community, according to legal experts.

A unanimous jury found that Google infringed on Oracle's 37 Java APIs, but they could not decide whether Google had made "fair use" of the infringing material in its Android mobile platform. As a result, the odds of a billion-dollar payday in Oracle's future -- at least in the near term -- are relatively low and … Read more

Oracle gets a chance to rewrite software law

Every now and again, a court case comes along that stands to rewrite the legal rules of the computing industry -- and we might just be at such a juncture right now.

Oracle's suit against Google over Java and Android could be one such case. It's putting to the test the notion that application programming interfaces -- APIs -- can be copyrighted.

In a partial verdict today, a jury gave Oracle a hard-fought "yes" when U.S. District Judge William Alsup asked it, "As to the compilable code for the 37 Java API packages in … Read more

Oracle v. Google jury returns partial verdict, favoring Oracle

SAN FRANCISCO -- The  jury in the Oracle v. Google trial rendered a partial verdict, favoring Oracle, in the copyright phase of the trial. Yet a question the jury failed to decide prompted Google to call for a mistrial, and could sharply limit damages even if the verdict stands.

The five male and seven female jurors failed to deliver unanimous answers to four detailed questions (see below) Judge William Alsup provided them prior to deliberations. The questions aimed to determine whether Google's Android mobile platform infringed on part of the Java programming language that Oracle acquired from Sun … Read more

Apple prepares upcoming Java updates for OS X

Apple is preparing updates to its Java 6 runtime for OS X 10.6 and 10.7, which will allow it to better co-exist with future versions of the Java runtime. These updates will soon be available for OS X 10.6 as "Java Update 9" and for OS X 10.7 as "Java Update 2012-004."

The Java SE 6 runtime that Apple provides for OS X 10.6 and 10.7 users will be the last in-house developed version of the Java runtime for OS X. For future versions starting with the upcoming Java 7 … Read more

Liar, Liar: Shareholders demand firing of Yahoo CEO

In today's show, Microsoft makes things more difficult, jurors wrestle over Java, and the CEO of Yahoo has his pants on fire:

Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson is being accused of lying about his college degree for years, and shareholders demand he's fired by Monday... or else.

The FBI says in this age of Internet communication, the department needs the power to wiretap into online chat and video services to find the evil-doers. CNET has learned that the FBI is talking to Internet companies like Facebook and Google, asking them to work with the FBI to build backdoors … Read more

No partial verdict in Oracle-Google copyright case after all

SAN FRANCISCO -- This afternoon, just before going home for the weekend, the jury almost came back with a partial verdict in the copyright phase of Oracle v. Google at the U.S. District Court here.

However, we won't know what they're thinking until at least Monday.

The jury sent a note to Judge William Alsup just after noon Pacific Time, informing the court that it had come to a unanimous decision on all questions but one -- on which the jury said it was at an "impasse." They were apparently at an impasse on one … Read more

Putting a price on Facebook

week in review We now know what investors will spend -- at least for a few seconds -- to get a piece of what is likely the most anticipated tech IPO ever.

Facebook is seeking to raise as much as $13.6 billion in its IPO, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission, which would value the company at roughly $88 billion. The company is aiming to price its shares between $28 and $35.

This paves for the way for Facebook and its bankers to begin the road show on Monday, with shares to start … Read more

Oracle-Google: Prospect of a partial verdict or mistrial looms

SAN FRANCISCO -- "Hope for the best, plan for the worst." That's where Judge William Alsup says we are while we wait for a verdict on the copyrights segment of Oracle v. Google at the U.S. District Court this morning.

Yesterday afternoon, the jury returned with the eighth note issued during the deliberation period, which asked, "What happens if we can't reach a unanimous decision and people are not budging?"

To recall, the jury began deliberating on Monday afternoon after lawyers from both Oracle and Google offered their closing statements for … Read more