Java is one of the most popular, and therefore important, operating systems on the planet today. Java is used in many different ways and the copyright is currently held by Oracle, following their acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010. When Oracle purchased Sun, they look a look at Google’s Android operating system as it contained some Java technologies, which were not licensed by Google. After a brief few months of negotiations between Oracle and Google, such that Google would license Oracle’s Java technologies, a deal was not reached. In August 2010, Oracle sued Google. Oracle’s case was based upon how Android has thirty seven Java APIs (Application Programmable Interfaces) embedded into the operating system, which infringed on both copyright and patents. Although Google won the original case in 2012 in a ruling of Google not infringing on Oracle’s patents, Oracle subsequently appealed the decision. Both Google and Oracle have taken the original case in and out of court several times and earlier this month, after the two businesses were unable to reach an agreement, another hearing was set. Over the last five and a half years, we have seen many stories of actions between the two parties – such as the relatively recent confidential data leak.
It appears that there is no love lost between these two technology giants as we have seen a report detailing the arguing between each lawyer to determine the amount of time Oracle has to present evidence for the up and coming case on the 9 May. These arguments also concern the technologies to be used and even the type of evidence jurors will see. Oracle’s lawyer, Peter Bicks, asked for more time than the original twelve hours of evidence per side as part of the “liability phase,” then a further seven hours for the “damages phase” (if necessary). The lawyer explained that Oracle had twenty six call witnesses and around ten years of history to detail. Google’s lawyer, Robert Van Nest, asked the court to stick with the original time limits. He explained: “They’re getting four or five different experts to say how important the code is … They will all say, ‘Oh, these declarations are critical, they’re the heart of Java.’ They’re trying to load this up with experts, and I don’t think that’s right.” He notied that only seven to eight thousand lines of code within Android’s fifteen million lines are relevant to the case. The judge compromised – increasing the amount of time to present evidence from twelve to fifteen hours, but reducing the amount of time to deliberate damages to five hours from seven.
Google also asked for jurors to be provided with pictures of the witnesses to jog their memories, as their witnesses will go first. The judge denied this, explaining that in a former trial he had tried this but a lawyer photoshopping the image of the witnesses, so that “This perfectly nice looking woman ended up looking like the Wicked Witch of the East.” One can only imagine the disappointment of lawyers in the courtroom closing their Chromebooks running Snapseed. The judge will allow pictures of witnesses to be shown during closing statements but did not want the jury given papers allowing them to be identified.