Google says Oracle should pay the $4 million in legal costs it incurred during this spring's legal battle over the Android mobile operating system. But Oracle says otherwise.
In a brief filed with a San Francisco federal court on Monday, Oracle argues that it doesn't owe Google a penny, citing other groundbreaking cases involving disputes over intellectual property.
"Because this case presented novel and difficult legal issues, had broad implications for the computer software industry, resulted in a mixed judgment, and was litigated in good faith, the Court should exercise its discretion to deny costs, as other courts have done in analogous circumstances," writes Oracle lead counsel Mike Jacobs.
Earlier this month, Google argued that Oracle should cover its estimated $4 million in legal costs because judge and jury denied most of Oracle's claims that the search giant had infringed on its intellectual property in building Android. Details of Google's expenses were filed under seal, but they include paying court-appointed expert witnesses and the management of a staggering 97 million legal documents.
Oracle filed suit against Google in August 2010, seven months after acquiring Sun Microsystems, the creator of the Java programming language. The software giant claimed that Google infringed on its Java-related copyrights and patents in building the Android mobile operating system. Among other things, Oracle argued that Google had illegally cloned 37 APIs, or application programming interfaces, that allow Java applications to talk to the Java software platform running on PCs, mobile phones, and other devices.
But after a year of pre-trial wrangling and six weeks in court, Oracle walked away with next to nothing. Judge and jury decided that Google was liable for lifting nine lines of code and two test files, and this translated to exactly zero dollars in damages.
Oracle has said it will appeal the rulings. But two companies still have unfinished business in the court of Judge William Alsup in San Francisco. Now that both sides have filed arguments over Google's legal costs, Alsup must decided who's right.
Oracle Motion Denying Google's Request to Cover Costs#iframe: http://www.scribd.com/embeds/100938771/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-1mic5o8or20v2zzmz55u||||||
