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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Rangecheck | 266 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections
Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:20 PM EDT
Please mention the mistake in the title of your post.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic
Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:21 PM EDT
For all posts that are not on topic.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Newspicks
Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:22 PM EDT
Please mention the news story's name in the title of the top
post.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes thread
Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:24 PM EDT
Please post all work on Comes exhibits here for PJ. Please
post the html as plain text so that PJ can easily copy them.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Tweets from the courtroom
Authored by: feldegast on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:25 PM EDT
https://twitter.com/#!/Feldegast

https://twitter. com/#!/Feldegast/oracal-vs-google- trial

---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2012 and released under the Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle's Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law - DENIED
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:31 PM EDT
According to multiple reporters on twitter:
Rachel King @ZDNetRachel
Alsup denies motion for judgment as a matter of law.

James Niccolai @jniccolai
After a loooong intense hearing, Alsup denied Oracle's motion for judgment as a matter of law on fair use. Story to come

BrandonBailey @BrandonBailey
Judge denied Oracle request for ruling that Google's use of APIs wasn't "fair use." He's not giving Oracle a basis to pursue big damages.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comparing an API to writing a song or poem
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:36 PM EDT
One of the worst argument that was used today was comparing
an API to writing a song or poem.
In my opinion as a software developer, API design is not a
creative work. Writing an API does not involve creativity,
it involves best practices and common sense.
And programmers who claim that APIs are creative must
rethink about the way they do their work.
I found a lot of very creative APIs in my programmer's life,
and the most creative were the worst to be used.
While creative work involves a lot of subjectivity, when
writing APIs you *must* be the most simple, direct and
objective as possible.

I think that APIs are more comparable to prescriptions and
patient package inserts than to any type of art.
Of course Google could rewrite the APIs in a different way,
but you do not copy an API because the API is sooo
creative - you simply copy it because every developer will
expect that a piece of software will be there to be
used.

Just as an example, when installing a new light switch in a
room, you must choose a place in such a way that,
when you open the door in the dark, you want to find the
switch as fast as possible. In this case, you could be
very creative and put it over the door, but probably you
will not do it, right? If the common sense is to put the
light switch in the left (or in the right) of the door
entrance, you *must* put there because people will search
for the switch in that position in the dark.
The same principle apply to APIs: you can expose the
functionality of your pogram in different and equivalent
ways, but the best way is to use the most common practice,
not the most creative.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does Oracle have a policy of researching software patents?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:38 PM EDT
I'd like to see Google ask Oracle developers ("engineers"?) about
their coding policies. As much as it seemed that Oracle was trying to punish
Google for not researching all Sun/Java patents when developing, I'm sure that
Oracle doesn't do this either. How could anyone and still manage to be
productive? And talk about unclean hands.. Just amazing they are getting away
with this line of questioning.

[ Reply to This | # ]

1088 q16
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:44 PM EDT
Given that names are not protected exactly what is it that has been copied.

That's what the fight was about.

Hoorah!

:-)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Say what?
Authored by: PolR on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 08:47 PM EDT
Oracle still used 70 pages, but instead of 35 pages of response they submitted 58 pages of response. Google is crying foul. (1097 [PDF; Text]) The worst part of Oracle's action is that "[i]n addition to allowing Oracle extra space, Oracle’s strategy allows it to criticize Google for not citing on-point evidence when the very quotes omitted by Oracle often provided just that evidence."
Huh? Do they think the judge won't notice? Do they think the judge will tolerate this nonsense?

Can we say that Oracle's assessment of their situation is that the consequences of inaction are worse that the consequences of doing this? Insanity is the alternative.

Prediction: bigger Google wins ahead.

[ Reply to This | # ]

what possible valid objection?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 09:06 PM EDT
I've just been reading this http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-
points-to-suns-sec-filings-to-defend-previous-testimony/76542?
tag=content;siu-container

And it says that Oracle objected to Google bringing in Suns 10k that
referenced the CEO blog.

What possible valid reason could they have to object to impeachment
evidence?


This would be devastating to our case, is not a valid objection.


This is what miss by not having the line by line story...

[ Reply to This | # ]

API game over?
Authored by: jbb on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 09:15 PM EDT
As noted by anon a couple of hour ago under the previous article, we have from Twitter:
Rachel King ‏ @ZDNetRachel Judge to Jacobs: You can't say "No one else can come along and do the exact same specification." Looking darker for Oracle each minute...
That's the entire API argument in a nutshell. Oracle's entire API case counted on Judge Alsup making new law so Oracle could say "no one else can come along and do the exact same specification."

If that statement by Judge Alsup was tweeted accurately then IMO the API portion of the case is over.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | # ]

Juvenile
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 09:19 PM EDT
Even if they thought the order specifying 35
was in hex, they went over that decimal 53 anyway.

But deleting text to insert more bamboolzment? Wow.

Like a whiny kid, not getting their way.

It sure appears that BS&F is trying to tick off
Judge Alsup, but I am sure he is on to their game
after the 'heated discussions' this afternoon.


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

'104 patent poorly described in media so far...
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 09:22 PM EDT
I'm concerned about the poor descriptions people have made about patent '104.
To me, the patent seems to have very little to do with making symbolic
references and more to do with JIT (just in time) compiling. The idea is that
once the symbolic reference is reached when interpreting the code, rather than
keep making the symbolic reference in the future, the symbolic reference is
replaced with a numeric (pointer) reference. This is what the supposed
invention is - the interpreter changing the data reference at runtime. This way
only the first reference is slow and the rest are fast.

So the question is.. Is this how the experts are explaining it to the jury? Or
are they simply saying that *all* symbolic references in vm bytecode are
somehow
infringing? Btw, I would assume that the original Smalltalk-80 vm did this as
well, but I haven't looked at the source. I was foiled by a stuffit file that
my Linux pc didn't want to open :(

ps. What happened to the Groklaw reporter? I keep looking for the reports from
yesterday and today, but I'm guessing they aren't happening?

[ Reply to This | # ]

A dart to the heart
Authored by: jbb on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 09:52 PM EDT
Judge Alsup asked for briefs on the following question:
Assuming that a copyright protection does not extend to names, including fully qualified names, and assuming that copyright protection does not bar others from using identical input-output (argument-return) designations, such that Google was free to use the identical names and identical input-output designations, what more did Google allegedly copy from the 37 packages that is allegedly covered by copyright? Put differently, assuming Google was free to do the foregoing, to what extent was Android’s SSO dictated by the rules of the basic programming language?
I think this is a most excellent question. Show us the SSO!

Answers are due Tuesday, May 10th.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle v. Google - Day 11 and Day 12 Filings
Authored by: Rubberman on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 10:31 PM EDT
Amazingly enough, all of this O.vs.G. trial cruft has been
incredibly entertaining! However, at this point, I think the
old adage "First, we kill all the lawyers!" is the way to
go... :rolleyes:

[ Reply to This | # ]

You've got it all wrong. The SSO is a red herring
Authored by: SirHumphrey on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 10:46 PM EDT
It's not the Structure, SEQUENCE and Organisation (SSO) that we should be
looking at here. BSF have again played sleight-of-hand. We should be looking at
the Stricture, CONCEPTS and Obfuscation (SCO) of the "case". The
similarities between the substance of the ever-changing goal posts and the
contents of Blepp's briefcase are astounding. Rupert Hine summed it up best on
his album "Waving, Not Drowning" - "a column of figures that
totals something different every time"

[ Reply to This | # ]

manipulating of filings?
Authored by: designerfx on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 10:50 PM EDT
The tampering of google's filings by oracle - is that legal?
Can that earn sanctions?

[ Reply to This | # ]

It's like deja vu all over again.
Authored by: jvillain on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 11:21 PM EDT
Oracle’s theory of copyright infringement has changed multiple times during this litigation.
Is it Ground Hog Day? The theory of what the case is about is changing? Isn't that where the SCO train stopped threatening to jump the tracks and actually did it? Changing the court case from tragedy to farce?

[ Reply to This | # ]

unbelievable!
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 12:11 AM EDT
Oracle still used 70 pages, but instead of 35 pages of response they submitted 58 pages of response. Google is crying foul. (1097 [PDF; Text]) The worst part of Oracle's action is that "[i]n addition to allowing Oracle extra space, Oracle’s strategy allows it to criticize Google for not citing on-point evidence when the very quotes omitted by Oracle often provided just that evidence."
That is amazing. Why did Oracle's lawyers think they would get away with that? Are they trying to provoke Judge Alsup into losing his cool and doing something that might improve their chances on appeal?

I mean, come on. It's one thing to twist the truth and spin fanciful theories that your opponent has to waste time disposing of, but to show such disregard for the court's instructions? That is appalling.

I am really curious to see whether the Judge will let them get away with it, or how he will react. (What if he simply rejects Oracle's submission and gives them one day to do it again but follow the rules this time? That would sure be something!)

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • unbelievable! - Authored by: Ed L. on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 12:32 AM EDT
    • What if - Authored by: mexaly on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 12:43 AM EDT
      • What if - Authored by: darrellb on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 09:39 AM EDT
        • What if - Authored by: Wol on Friday, May 11 2012 @ 02:29 PM EDT
  • Very believable - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 04:11 AM EDT
"Write Once, Read Anywhere", by a simple java programmer
Authored by: dodger on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 02:05 AM EDT
Sun always promoted Java as "Write Once, Read Anywhere". The
target was all machines. By creating 'byte code' instead of
machine specific code, they encouraged manufacturers to
write their own 'byte code' interpreters, also known as
"Java Virtual Machines" or JVMs.

There were many JVMs out there: notably by IBM, Microsoft,
Sun, and later some open source variants, one called "Iced
Tea".

Microsoft was sued for 'changing the api', but the others
were not sued. (Sounds like dead if you do, dead if you
don't!) All of them respected and faithfully replicated the
api (Microsoft too to at least 98%).

I don't believe that anyone paid money to Sun/Oracle for
permission to copy the api. That part of it was always a
given. In Microsoft's case, it was the name 'Java' that they
were protecting together with the 'Write Once, Read
Anywhere'. Clearly, if Microsoft stuffed their own api, then
a program written to the 'special Microsoft api' would not
run on a jvm that didn't implement those features and
functions in that way.

It was Sun's mission to get everyone out there to use Java
and remove hardware barriers to programming. They made clear
that their copyright/ownership/stewardship was to protect
the name of "Java" and to enforce that all implementations
conformed to the concept "Right Once, Read Anywhere."

1. It must be recorded how much money they made from other
companies and what exactly they sold.
2. Java was open sourced.
3. Sun encouraged everyone to use Java, because of its
consistent function on all platforms. (It was as much an
innovation as a barb in the side of Microsoft, whose api's
were a vendor lockin to the Windows software.)
4. Because Google DID NOT USE THE NAME JAVA, there should be
no issues of any kind. Android is a subset. It uses the
technique of Java, but it is not Java. It is Java-like.
5. Using 'byte code' as being platform neutral is an old
idea. I first heard about it as 'pcode' in the 1980's as
being a pascal technique. (I never used it and am no expert
in it.) The problem was back then that the machines were not
so fast, so you were giving them a second task of
interpreting pcode at the same time you were having the
program doing something for you.
PCODE is prior use.
6. The Java api is a community generated 'work'. It was not
solely developed by SUN. Many companies were involved in the
process of creating the api which expanded exponentially
over the years. There were regular requests for submissions
to the community. (I cannot see how Sun can copyright the
work of others. I can understand, however, how they can tie
the name of Java to the API to keep the language 'pure' from
the adultery of others. However, Android is NOT Java. It has
never been called Java. It has it's own APIs. Some are
implemented like Java, even copied, but it is not Java.)
7. To promote wide adoption of Java, Sun made corporate
statements about what they would or would not do with Java.
(that was in the 1990's). Now (2012), Oracle is suing for
what basically was promoted as 'open' and they are arguing
for 'closed'. I think they should be sued for 'breach of
social contract' or at least false advertising.

"Give me a lever long enough, and a place to put it on, and
I can sue the dickens out of everyone." --Sueonitus, 523 bc.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Has Google raised the issue of copyright ownership?
Authored by: Ian Al on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 04:02 AM EDT
Original and amended complaint:
11. Oracle America owns copyrights in the code, documentation, specifications, libraries, and other materials that comprise the Java platform. Oracle America’s Java-related copyrights are registered with the United States Copyright Office, including those attached as Exhibit H.
Google's Answer to the Amended Complaint:
11. Google admits that what appear to be copies of certificates of registration numbers TX 6-196-514, TX 6-066-538 and TX 6-143-306 issued by the U.S. Copyright Office (the "Asserted Copyrights") are attached to Oracle's Amended Complaint as exhibit H. Google is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the remaining allegations of paragraph 11, and therefore denies them.
and,
To the extent Oracle believes that Google has infringed or is liable for infringement by any party of the copyrights in any works other than those that are the subject of the two registrations included in Exhibit H to the Complaint, Oracle should identify any and all such other works and the copyright registrations for them.
So, Google denies that Oracle owns any copyrights both within the registered works and other than the works. Oracle must prove ownership, in court.

Since the registrations were deficient, neither Oracle nor Google know what individual copyright works are covered by the registration. The registration certificates refer to the inclusion of third party materials which confirms that not all the copyright in whatever the work as a whole is, is owned by Oracle. Looking at just the APIs, Oracle have conceded that 14 of the copied packages of APIs are owned by third parties.

Oracle are obliged to prove ownership of each copyright, in court, that they wish to assert against Google.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Importance of code
Authored by: stegu on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 04:08 AM EDT
> Oracle then spends the remainder of the filing talking
> about how clearly valuable and critical rangeCheck is
> to Android

The same line of argument could be used to claim that
the all important part of Android is the closing curly
brace of a single class file. Without it, Android would
not even compile, and certainly not run. If Google has
a closing curly brace in TimSort.java, it must be copied,
and Google owes Oracle billions for it, because their
Android business is absolutley dependent on that single
curly brace, because removing it would break Android.
(They had a software expert try it. Honestly.)

Judge Alsup has already told Oracle's counsel that some
of their claims are bordering on ridiculous. I would go
a lot further and say that all their claims are now
quite a bit past that border and far into la-la-land.

BSF can't possibly have any hope of winning this any
longer. This must be stalling tactics, nothing more.
I can see how stalling increases the billable hours
for BSF, but I can't really see how if benefits
Oracle who is paying the bill.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Rangecheck
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 06:35 AM EDT
Firstly, Rangecheck is available on the web; it just takes a
trivial search to find the two versions. If you do that you
will see that they are very similar. You will also see
exactly how simple it is; it would take a competent Java
developer 5 minutes to write and 20 minutes to test
incredibly thoroughly, if that. This is not by any means a
complex piece of code, nor could I characterize it as having
subtleties with a straight face while under oath.

I don't think it's got a value of zero - no code has - but
maybe it's got a value of $10 to $20. You'd be very hard-
pressed to argue that it's got a value of $100 or more.

Lastly, Oracle makes great play of how important it is,
but in fact it's a guard routine, just making sure that
nothing has gone wrong, and alerting if it has. In fact, you
could just ignore it/remove it/replace it with a stub
routine that did nothing, and Android would continue to
function perfectly well for almost all programs. The only
time it might falter would be when a program contained an
error that RangeCheck would have caught. And if you removed
RangeCheck, in one way Android would be better: it would be
faster.

Oracle is mischaracterizing RangeCheck. It's not terribly
important, it's not a difficult bit of code, it didn't take
an expert to write it; it's not anything special.

[ Reply to This | # ]

If and when the judge rules that APIs cannot be copyrighted...
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 08:10 AM EDT
as many of us believe to be the case - will he do so in front
of the jury, or only with the legal teams?

Oracle's claims have been ridiculous, and perhaps the jury
should see this before the next stages.

[ Reply to This | # ]

API copyright and translations
Authored by: darlmclied on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 09:56 AM EDT
I am curious whether Oracle would consider it infringing if
someone took the 37 API's and implemented them in another
language, eg python.

It is not un-common for ideas to be ported from one language
to another (indeed, TimSort, where the infamous rangecheck()
cropped up was ported to Java from python).

If translations to other languages are not deemed infringing,
then presumably a translation of a translation would be ok --
so you could go from Java to python and back to Java and be
ok.

[ Reply to This | # ]

boola boola!! I own the digital language that all computers use.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 09:59 AM EDT
I am claiming membership in the tribe of neecha and boola.
As the local Representative I am asserting ownership of the most holy IP.

I tell you
about the tribe whose word for one was neecha, for two was boola, for three
was neecha boola, for four was boola boola.
Pay up.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ownership of Range check
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 10:23 AM EDT
When was rangecheck written? Did it predate java 1.4? Is it actually covered
by the registration for 1.4 and/or 5? Did Oracle actually prove that it was
appropriate to be a part of this case?

[ Reply to This | # ]

It's Beeeellions I Tell You!
Authored by: 351-4V on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 10:30 AM EDT
I had to check the date on this one to be certain it was not a month old and sure enough today, 5/10/2012 the Washington Post ran the following headline "Google could be liable for as much as $1b in Oracle intellectual property case". Washington Post story here To be fair it says "Updated" but I guess they are still selling advertising space to Oracle.

And people wonder why old media is having such a tough go of it these days.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Range Check
Authored by: DannyB on Thursday, May 10 2012 @ 11:33 AM EDT
I find it unbelievable considering Oracle's original complaint that Oracle is
now arguing about Range Check and Hello World.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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