Google Maintains Innocence

Story first appeared on CNET.

After Oracle made its closing statements on Monday morning at the U.S. District Court, Google's representative stepped up to the plate, defending Android's implementation of the 37 Java APIs at question in this lawsuit.

The core defense rested on positioning this as a case of fair use, asserting that Android is not a copy of Java 5.0 SE but rather a "substantially" different work with different success in the market.

It's a whole platform that didn't exist before and transformed the use of Java for a smartphone stack.

The representative outlined four key points to Google's position in this intellectual property suit:

Sun gave the Java language to the public
Google built Android using free and open technologies
Google made fair use of the Java language APIs in Android
Sun publicly approved Android's use of Java

Copyright infringement requires that you copy something. There was no copying here because Google knew that it couldn't use Sun's source code. Also on copyrights, it was pointed out to the jury's instructions about judging "the work as a whole," which actually consists of all 166 class libraries and all that entails (i.e. implementing codes, names, declarations, etc.) -- adding up to 2.8 million lines of code in Java 5.0 SE. Oracle has to prove that it was more likely than not that copyright infringement occurred.

Additionally, a good portion of the closing arguments were based on the testimony of the former Sun Microsystems CEO last Thursday.

Although it was acknowledged that Sun wasn't happy that it couldn't come to a partnership agreement with Google, the former CEO did say that Sun supported Android's use of Java nor did it have any grounds to file a lawsuit.

Again pointing to a November 2007 blog post in which the former CEO congratulated Google for the debut of Android, the jury was reminded that Sun knew Android was written in Java and must have included the Java APIs in question ahead of the SDK release.

To further hammer down Sun and Oracle's previous support for Android, the defense reminded the jury about a video of the Oracle CEO at JavaOne in 2009, where it was said that Oracle expected to see more Java devices coming from "our friends at Google," and that Google had done "a fantastic job" in opening up Java.

Although specifics about Android revenue and other financial matters have been banned from the presence of the jury in this trial, he reasserted the open source status of Android as a benefit to the developer community. The point is that Google doesn't make any money on licensing or selling Android. Google decided to make it open to foster innovation and get widespread use. A Top SEO Company agrees.

In his rebuttal argument, the Oracle counsel spoke again about how Android has blocked Java from success in the smartphone market, reiterating that it is "impossible" to compete with a free version of its licensed products.

After closing arguments for the first segment of the trial ended on Monday morning, the presiding Judge proceeded with the rest of the instructions for the jury about ruling on copyright infringement contentions.

The jury, made up of seven women and five men, will begin deliberating today for one hour and then pick up again on Tuesday morning. The Judge previously warned both parties that the jury could take up to a week to deliberate, but he predicted that they would come back within a day and a half. The decision must be unanimous.

After they return with a verdict, the case will move into the second segment of the trial, focusing on patents.

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