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agreed... was "assume Google are guilty" | 697 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Why? Isn't this the verdict Google wanted?
Authored by: Cassandra on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 02:41 PM EDT
Am I reading the (partial) verdict wrong? Surely the jury found for Google in
every respect, apart from those questions that Google must have known it
couldn't win on? (Such as those 9 lines of code...)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google now asking for a mistrial
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 02:44 PM EDT
The jury instructions weren't biased.

The judge had to decide whether SSO was copyrightable. If he decided it wasn't,
the jury was irrelevant. So he told the jury to begin deliberation as if he had,
so that in the event he decided they weren't copyrightable, there was an
existing jury verdict for that scenario in case his decision was overturned on
appeal.

He was handling the contingencies. If he didn't send it to the jury and decided
against, and that was later overturned, it would has necessitated a whole new
trial, at great expense to everyone involved. If he decides the APIs can't be
copyrighted, the jury decision is nullified by default, as in that situation
Oracle has no case.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

partial verdict-time limit to register complaint...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 03:18 PM EDT
Ok, accepting a partial verdict is strange. Didn't we see one of Novell V. MS
's trials end up hung because the jury could not complete the second part of a
two-part question?

If returning a partial verdict is strange, then I can easily see the side
disadvantaged by the partial decision wanting to fix that.

And if they need to file the motion promptly to avoid becoming
"untimely" then they need to just do it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google now asking for a mistrial
Authored by: hardmath on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 04:06 PM EDT
Almost certainly the judge will deny Google's motion for a mistrial on
Question 1, but it preserves Google's rights on appeal.


---
"Prolog is an efficient programming language because it is a very stupid theorem
prover." -- Richard O'Keefe

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Could the judge simply nullify the verdict?
Authored by: Gringo_ on Monday, May 07 2012 @ 11:26 PM EDT

Say the judge has decided to declared that the API was not copyrightable, and along with that, consider that the other things were de minimus or latched. Would it not be simpler then to just nullify the jury's verdict? Can he?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

agreed... was "assume Google are guilty"
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 08 2012 @ 02:00 AM EDT
The result was the best it could be considering the instructions.

* stipulates Google admits SSO is the same.
* Judge says API SSO is copyrightable to jury.

Translation.
* Google is guilty.. work out how much so.

It SHOULD have been made crazy clear to the Jury, that the only reason the judge
was saying SSO is copyrightable is because be plans to decide that issue himself
later and wants to know if they think it was fair use.

Because the instructions were not that clear in this regard, they went to
deliberations knowing that Google were guilty of SSO copyright violations...
there was no way they could not find them guilty of SSO copyright violations
except for fair use.

If Alsup had made his decision regarding SSO copyright before hand, this would
all be fine, but he gave the jury the impression of guilt at the outset.

In fact, between the bad jury instructions and the face that Van nest never
asked Scott Mcneally why SEC releases and investor info were on a personal blog,
its a wonder this turned out as well as it did.

Google are right to want a mistrial.... but if the judge rules that API's are
not copyrightable, I don't see how a mistrial would be better for them.

cheers

Frank

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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