Judge learns Java during Oracle v Google court battle to better prepare for the case.

[Crimor]

[quote]For several weeks, U.S. District Judge William Alsup showed that he was the smartest person in the courtroom as high-priced lawyers for Google and Oracle pleaded their cases. On Thursday afternoon, he basically slammed the door in Oracle's face, explaining in a 41-page ruling that the 37 Java APIs used in Google's Android platform do not fall under U.S. copyright laws. The ruling on APIs followed a jury verdict on May 23 that absolved Google of violating two Oracle patents.

Oracle was asking for more than $1 billion in damages, but in the end the jury found that Google only guilty of copying nine lines of rangeCheck code in the Timsort.java file, which one expert witness said a high school kid could have written. At this point, Google is on the hook for just statutory damages, with a maximum of $150,000.[/quote]

[url]http://www.cnet.com/news/judge-william-alsup-master-of-the-court-and-java/[/url]

Oracle should spend more time fixing security holes instead of wasting court time.

[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Really? The article is 3 years old." - Seiteki))[/highlight]

[BuffaloBill]

Good, very good. Love watching judges do stuff like this, shame it's so rare. :(

[Elexar]

[quote]In one episode, Oracle's star lawyer, David Boies, who bested Bill Gates in U.S. v. Microsoft case and represented Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore in front of the Supreme Court, was arguing that Google copied the nine lines of rangeCheck code to accelerate development to gain faster entry into the mobile phone market.

Alsup told Boies, "I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America --how could you even make that kind of argument?"[/quote]

[B]#rekt[/B]

[ubermensch]

This is really cool. I think half the time people in charge don't actually understand what they are in charge of, in this case the judge is doing a great job.

[Download]

I could have sworn I heard this a year back at least.

[Download]

[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;47868129]Posted: May 31, 2012 6:03 PM PDT Updated: May 29, 2014 2:31 PM PDT

Probably because you did.[/QUOTE]

Three years, that's even worse.

[DeEz]

copying [I]nine[/I] lines of code?

really?

[Zethin]

[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;47868073]Can someone explain what this is for and why?[/QUOTE]

In this specific case it's likely a combination of copyright damages plus court costs and fees. It was still 9 lines of code which is why it was reduced from $1 billion in statutory damages to just maximum of $150k. This is because the Jury still found Google guilty of copying those 9 lines, so they weren't totally absolved of copyright infringement charges.

[wauterboi]

[QUOTE=WitheredGryphon;47868311]In this specific case it's likely a combination of copyright damages plus court costs and fees. It was still 9 lines of code which is why it was reduced from $1 billion in statutory damages to just maximum of $150k. This is because the Jury still found Google guilty of copying those 9 lines, so they weren't totally absolved of copyright infringement charges.[/QUOTE]
Man, I know some programmers that would be totally poor if we're setting the price tag to $150k per 9 lines.

[Download]

[QUOTE=wauterboi;47868316]Man, I know some programmers that would be totally poor if we're setting the price tag to $150k per 9 lines.[/QUOTE]

Wouldn't they actually be really rich?

[Zethin]

[QUOTE=wauterboi;47868316]Man, I know some programmers that would be totally poor if we're setting the price tag to $150k per 9 lines.[/QUOTE]

I really doubt Google will get hit with the full $150k. IIRC statutory damages can range between $700-$30,000 per "infringement" or in this case each line that was allegedly copied. That's why Oracle tried slamming Google with that $1 billion price tag. $30k per line of code is ridiculous

[Sableye]

[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;47868073]Can someone explain what this is for and why?[/QUOTE]

Got a give them a bone somehow

[Jsm]

I too browse /r/todayILearned.

Also, a higher judge completely overruled his rulings anyway. Claiming that he did not understand the law or something. Basically common sense got defeated.

[DeEz]

[QUOTE=Jsm;47868621]I too browse /r/todayILearned.

Also, a higher judge completely overruled his rulings anyway. Claiming that he did not understand the law or something. Basically common sense got defeated.[/QUOTE]

fucking really

this world needs less overzealous legal departments

not to mention judges that aren't bought and paid for

[BryBreadmin]

[QUOTE=Jsm;47868621]I too browse /r/todayILearned.

Also, a higher judge completely overruled his rulings anyway. Claiming that he did not understand the law or something. Basically common sense got defeated.[/QUOTE]

Source?

[Jsm]

[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;47868995]Source?[/QUOTE]

[URL]http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/13-1021.Opinion.5-7-2014.1.PDF[/URL]

They found his decision "contrary to established law"

Article [url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/09/oracle_vs_google_appeal/[/url]

[dgg]

[QUOTE=Jsm;47869026][URL]http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/13-1021.Opinion.5-7-2014.1.PDF[/URL]

They found his decision "contrary to established law"

Article [url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/09/oracle_vs_google_appeal/[/url][/QUOTE]

I hate laws, always strict and outdated on these "modern" things despite having been around for decades.

Their arguments are sound with the laws in mind though, code is currently covered by copyright law for some reason, and you can't disagree with the idea that you can't have a "minimum threshold" before it's copyright infringement. It's just that code is code, you don't write it differently for the sake of it, so copyrighting one way of doing it just doesn't work out.

[wauterboi]

[QUOTE=download;47868323]Wouldn't they actually be really rich?[/QUOTE]
I'm talking about lazy copy+pasters. :P

[redBadger]

Java stills trash

[Cutthecrap]

Hey I made this great pizza and I'm go...

Now hold on there sir, you've used 3 patented steps in your process. You can't add the flour in that way nor use that specific oven at that temperature.

We're sorry but you'll have to pay ONE BILLION $$$$

[Monkah]

[QUOTE=Jsm;47868621]I too browse /r/todayILearned.

Also, a higher judge completely overruled his rulings anyway. Claiming that he did not understand the law or something. Basically common sense got defeated.[/QUOTE]

you mean someone probably got paid off

[nikomo]

I'm not sure Google should even be on the hook for possibly copying a few lines of code from Oracle's Timsort implementation.
Timsort is a sorting algorithm invented by Tim Peters, over a decade ago, for the Python language.

Oracle might own the rights to their own implementation, but the algorithm itself was not invented by them, and the implementation has nothing new or innovative about it, so I find it hard to call it an original work.

[Banhfunbags]

[QUOTE]Oracle was asking for more than $1 billion in damages, but in the end the jury found that Google only guilty of copying nine lines of rangeCheck code in the Timsort.java file, which one expert witness said a high school kid could have written. [/QUOTE]

wow.

[Provost]

this is like one author suing another for using the word "the" in their book

[RocketSnail]

[QUOTE=DeEz;47868237]copying [I]nine[/I] lines of code?

really?[/QUOTE]

9 lines of code can be a; lot; of; logic;

;)

[Lowland]

Imagine the lawyer's face when he realized he couldn't bullshit the judge.

[Zeke129]

I don't think it's a good idea to force a judge to go insane before a court case

[CapellanCitizen]

For reference, these are the lines:

[quote]
private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex {
if (fromIndex > toIndex)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
if (fromIndex < 0)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
if (toIndex > arrayLen)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
}
[/quote]

The passage is insanely trivial. HOWEVER, the main issue, why it was considered infringing, is that it was originally written by an ex-Sun employee (this was before Oracle purchased Sun) and contributed to the GPL-licensed OpenJDK Java implementation. He later went on to work at Google, and used this code verbatim in Android's Java implementation. That was ruled an infringement of copyright.

If it had been even a character different, there probably wouldn't have been a problem.

Whether or not APIs are copyrightable is another issue, and given that the Federal Circuit ruled that they are copyrightable (IMO a huge failing), it now falls on Google to appeal the decision, and/or prove that their use of the APIs constitutes fair use. It's important to understand that if Google appeals, they'll get to bring their case before the entire bench, instead of just the three people that remanded the earlier decision - Hopefully, they'll see reason then

[Helix Snake]

[QUOTE=CapellanCitizen;47872811]For reference, these are the lines:

The passage is insanely trivial. HOWEVER, the main issue, why it was considered infringing, is that it was originally written by an ex-Sun employee (this was before Oracle purchased Sun) and contributed to the GPL-licensed OpenJDK Java implementation. He later went on to work at Google, and used this code verbatim in Android's Java implementation. That was ruled an infringement of copyright.

If it had been even a character different, there probably wouldn't have been a problem.

Whether or not APIs are copyrightable is another issue, and given that the Federal Circuit ruled that they are copyrightable (IMO a huge failing), it now falls on Google to appeal the decision, and/or prove that their use of the APIs constitutes fair use. It's important to understand that if Google appeals, they'll get to bring their case before the entire bench, instead of just the three people that remanded the earlier decision - Hopefully, they'll see reason then[/QUOTE]

This is probably the greatest example of the Copyright system in America being completely and utterly fucked. This is legit worse than Apple's fucking rounded corners.

[CapellanCitizen]

[QUOTE=Helix Snake;47872825]This is probably the greatest example of the Copyright system in America being completely and utterly fucked. This is legit worse than Apple's fucking rounded corners.[/QUOTE]

Again, although the snippet is trivial, it [b]WAS[/b] copied, and that's still infringement.