Talk:Oracle v. Google (2010, USA)

5p75ha <a href="http://pzfhtonknmda.com/">pzfhtonknmda</a>

Unusual patent number

It's because it's a reissued patent. The patent number is 05367685.

Thanks! I'll update the article. Ciaran 10:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

All trivial patents?

The quoted claims seem to all be completely trivial.

Shouldn't Google be able to get them all invalidated easily? (even without prior art)

Invalidating is never easy. For one example, see Amazon's 1-click patent. The review process took five full years, and the end result was that it was narrowed but upheld.

But let's see what we can gather anyway - it could be useful for this case or for a future case. Ciaran 14:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, looking deeper, the problem is that the parts quoted here (the first claim, which the patent then expands upon) don't seem to very representative of the actual patents, which do have more specific detail.

You should probably remove the quotes and either reproduce the full patent, write a summary or just have a link.

Private / Protected

From the page:

Prior art: This is C++ private / protected.

No, those apply at the level of individual members - not classes.

Whoever made that comment regarding not classes is incorrect. Private/protected can be applied to members AND classes in C++. As well as C# and probably some other languages.

Sublicensing and free software licenses

The part that reads "Further, this grant does not include the right to sublicense. That is incompatible with any free software licence and means that only meeting all of the six onerous requirements would actually grant a patent license" needs some expansion or clarification as to why not allowing sublicensing is incompatible with free software licenses.

Consider that GPLv3 explicitly prohibits sublicensing (last sentence of section 2, "Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under the conditions stated below. Sublicensing is not allowed; section 10 makes it unnecessary."). Section 10 is the section that says when you convey the GPLv3 work, the recipient receives a license from the original licensor.

That seems to indicate that it is OK in a copyright license to prohibit sublicensing yet still be compatible with free software. I don't see why it would be different in a patent license.

That's a good question. I'll trying to find an answer. (Or if someone else has the answer, I would be interested to hear it.) Ciaran 17:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Oracle not bound by GPL

Since Oracle owns the complete copyrights to the JDK source code and the GPL is a license regulating redistribution, they are not bound by the terms of the GPL: they are redistributing the software to you without conditions on them. The GPL imposes conditions only on the recipients. So, on the whole, that means that Oracle can sue anybody for patent infringement, even people using the software under the GPL.

This is also clear from the remedy: if you violate the GPL by suing, you lose the rights to redistribute the software, but that obviously doesn't make any sense for Oracle: they own the complete copyright, including for commercial distribution, so they can't lose the rights to distributing the software. -178.26.85.27

You must make clear distinction between own and others' modifications. By suing you can loose rights to distribute others' contributions to the Work, but of course, not your own (that is correct). The problem is that all of the copyrights were given by their respective first owners to Sun (and now to Oracle). But I'd like to correct you: GPL imposes conditions ONLY ON DISTRIBUTORS. Recepients, if they do not redistribute, are not bound by it. Even if they modify, as long as the modification is not released, they do not need to show the code. That's why SaaS is such a big problem: Technically it's the servers that use the modified GPL software, not the users. Users only see the result (and that's where AGPL comes in which does forces in-house modifications to be made free). -78.134.136.103

Is there anything to prove this idea? (Such as a comment from a lawyer specialised in copyright)

Have other GPL'd projects successfully claimed that the GPL doesn't apply to them because they own the copyright of their software? Ciaran 12:46, 7 December 2010 (EST)

That is wrong interpretation. There is difference between restrictions and permissions. Oracle have given a implicit patent grant, which is permission and it is irrevocable, much like GPL's copyright license which is also irrevocable. If parent post's interpretation is correct, that would mean that every company that releases code under GPL could revoke it tomorrow because they own all the code, and that nobody is allowed to fork prior versions. Luckily this is wrong, or else Free Software movement wouldn't live this long. No matter if Oracle owns all the code, they can't sue users for patent infringement (nor for copyright infringement) if users obey GPL. GPL is only revoked upon violation. Well.. they can try suing, but only thing defendant would need to do to win the case is show GPL to the judge and Oracle would probably get charged for disrespect of court. However, restrictions of GPL are another matter. Those don't apply on copyright holder because copyright holder is one that is supposed to enforce those restrictions, and that effectively means that Oracle can make Java proprietary since they own all copyrights and they wont enforce restrictions on themselves. (That is how that Open-Core business model works.) But is also means we can fork last Free version of Java and compete with Oracle, so I don't think they'll do it.