High-level executives at Google and Oracle were ordered to hold one last round of settlement talks, with the trial over Google's alleged use of Java technology in Android set to begin April 16.
The suit began in August 2010 when Oracle sued Google for patent and copyright infringement over use of the Java programming language in development of Android. Settlement talks have been ordered multiple times, but so far no deal has been made. On Friday, Judge Paul Grewal of US District Court in Northern California ordered Android chief Andy Rubin and Oracle Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz to hold "a further settlement conference" no later than April 9.
The last-ditch effort to avoid a trial seems unlikely to succeed. The trial date of April 16 was recently confirmed, after Oracle narrowed the scope of its claims against Google.
Oracle initially accused Google of violating seven patents, but has since dropped most of them. This is due to the US Patent and Trademark Office ruling the patents described technology that was not patentable. Two patents assigned to the Oracle-owned Sun Microsystems remain: #6,061,520, which covers "an improvement over conventional systems for initializing static arrays by reducing the amount of code executed by the virtual machine to statically initialize an array," and #RE38,104, which covers a type of compiler and interpreter.
The '520 claim has been confirmed as patentable, but the '104 claim is on shaky ground, having been "preliminarily rejected." Several other claims were rejected outright by the patent office. At the moment, the trial is slated to examine the two remaining patents and Oracle's copyright claims.
Oracle and Google filed new briefs on the copyright issues Friday. Oracle jumped on a Google statement regarding use of Java APIs, saying "Google finally admits what everyone has known all along: 'the Android specifications for the 37 API packages at issue have substantially the same selection, arrangement and structure of API elements as the J2SE specifications.'"
Google, however, argued that APIs cannot be copyrighted, saying "languages and APIs provide the tools for expression, but their vocabularies are not copyrightable expression."
Android, of course, has faced legal threats on multiple fronts. Most major hardware vendors selling Android phones have agreed to pay Microsoft licensing fees to avoid patent lawsuits. Apple has sued multiple Android vendors, and offered licensing deals to some of them. While hardware vendors have been the primary target, Oracle seeks financial damages from Google itself.
Listing image by Photograph by astanush
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