The court system has been jam packed with tech patent infringement suits lately, and two of the most recent and more significant updates crossed the wire, starting with the Oracle vs. Google case.
Oracle has filed a lawsuit against Google claiming that its Android mobile platform has several infringements on the Java programming language last year. Now, after expert witness Iain Cockburn, a Boston University professor took the stand, it wants a bigger cut of the Android pie, and will get it, should Oracle win the lawsuit (or just as likely, reach a settlement before the trial has begun.)
Cockburn argued that Google would owe unspecified damages if Android was found to infringe on Java.
“The actual amount wasn’t disclosed, but Google did note that all Android revenue was included in Cockburn’s royalty calculation. Oracle also wants Google’s ad revenue from Android although Cockburn didn’t outline that argument directly.”
Oracle also wants a 50 percent royalty rate. Should it win the trial, Google will most likely need to rewrite Android code, a very hefty investment that turns into a particularly large headache (even bigger than the lawsuit is now) considering the millions and millions of devices currently powered by the mobile OS.
A few months ago a California judge ordered Oracle to reduce the 132 claims in its case to a mere 3, in order to make the case a little less complicated. A small victory for Google, but not much of a deterrent for Oracle.
Oracle is going to trial because it believes it may get something out of it, and that decision did in fact pay off in its lawsuit against SAP. The end result was $1.3 billion in damages given to Oracle, which is probably more than what it had to pay to former Sybase investors.
A class action lawsuit was filed by Sybase investors, a company SAP has acquired for $5.8 billion, claiming that the German business software maker did not provide a sufficient amount of information about the deal, and that the price paid to shareholders was too low. Now, a US court has approved a settlement - no details were closed, other than that SAP won’t have to pay more than $1 million in lawyer fees.
[...] It seems that Oracle’s got some bad karma on its hands. After suing SAP and most recently demanding a bigger chunk of Android in its case against Google, Hewlett-Packard has said it intends to sue Oracle should the IT giant [...]
[...] patents, whittling them down from 132 to just three. These infringement cases and lawsuits make Oracle somewhat of a bully in the tech community as they initialize almost all legal moves against mentioned companies. [...]
[...] lawsuits continue to pile up. Oracle sued Google for its Android platform, stating that it was a rip-off of their Java programming. But Oracle isn’t always the one filing lawsuits, as HP recently [...]