A federal jury in San Francisco was asked to decide a number of questions in Oracle Corp.’s copyright-infringement case against Google Inc. Oracle had accused Google of stealing its Java programming language to build Google’s Android software for mobile devices.
Here’s how jurors ruled:
_ In the most important aspect of the case, jurors found Google violated Oracle’s copyrights in using 37 of Java’s “application programming interfaces,” or APIs, that provide the blueprints for making much of the software work effectively. However, jurors couldn’t agree on whether Google was protected by “fair use” provisions of U.S. copyright law. As a result, the verdict is of little value to Oracle, which probably won’t be able to extract hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.
_ Jurors cleared Google of infringement surrounding manuals for those APIs.
_ Jurors found that Google infringed on nine lines of Java coding, but that claim probably won’t be worth more than $150,000 in damages.
_ Jurors cleared Google of infringement on two other minor Java elements.
_ In an advisory verdict for the judge, the jury concluded that Google was led to believe that it wouldn’t need a license for the parts of Java that it used in Android. But the jury also decided Google didn’t prove those representations were the reason why Google decided not to obtain a Java license.
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