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Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw)
Groklaw has an order
from the court in Oracle v. Google requiring that most of the claims in
the case be dropped forever. "Currently, there are 132 claims from
seven patents asserted in this action, and there are hundreds of prior art
references in play for invalidity defenses. This is too much. The following
schedule will ensure that only a triable number of these items - three
claims and eight prior art references - are placed before the jury in
October, all others to be forsaken. Oracle will surrender all of its
present infringement claims against Google based on the 129 asserted claims
that will not be tried. Oracle may not renew those infringement claims in a
subsequent action except as to new products."
(Log in to post comments)
and then there were 3 Posted May 5, 2011 14:50 UTC (Thu) by dallardi (subscriber, #6247) [Link]
Wow... this restores some hope for me in our judicial system regarding patent claims around software. Maybe there is hope in the long-term with this kind of common-sense on the bench. I don't expect much reform out of the politicians in Washington, with the deep-pocketed lobbyists for Corporate America trying to extend their "competitive (dis)advantage" via patent lawsuits. Oxymoron of the day - intellectual property.
and then there were 3 Posted May 5, 2011 15:00 UTC (Thu) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
Really?! To me it seems like a complete breakdown of your system! I mean, it seems like the laws protecting software patents are a joke. Don't misunderstand me, I'm completely against patents, but, if there are laws that protect them, this decision seems really retarded. "Well, you presented too many claims, let's randomly reduce them to 3 and look only at them, because we can't bother to take them all into consideration"!
and then there were 3 Posted May 5, 2011 15:25 UTC (Thu) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Using your analogy it would be safe to say an a reverse point of view; "class action" lawsuits are a complete break down of our legal system. Why bother reducing the case load by taking each claimants separately.
and then there were 3 Posted May 5, 2011 15:58 UTC (Thu) by MisterIO (guest, #36192) [Link]
Well, then I may have misunderstood the situation. Are they simply grouping claims, not ignoring some of them? If that's the case, then what's that part about not being able to assert them in the future?
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 16:02 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link]
I do not think this is quite the right analogy.
Imagine a class action against a car company that had problems with the accelerator sticking and the brakes failing. Now imagine the court demands that only one of either the brakes or the accelerator will be handled at trial for reasons of efficiency. The decision on the one will be considered binding on the plaintiffs for both even though one of the issue is never discussed at trial at all.
Let's say the accelerator is chosen. If the car company wins that case, the people with failing brakes never get any satisfaction even if they would have been victorious in a trial on the brake issue.
Actually, your class action suit is a red herring completely because it is the number of issues (not the number of plaintiffs or defendants) that is being negotiated. Imagine a trial for a serial killer where the judge decided that 32 counts of murder was too many. Perhaps just four of the cases should be brought against the defendant with the result being binding for all of them. If the killer got off, none of the remaining 28 could be raised in court ever.
My gut reaction is to be pleased to see the case streamlined. However, the potential injustice flagged by the comment above is a valid concern I believe.
A part of me wants software patent cases to be so huge and expensive as to be impractical even for very large companies. I really like the community efforts to prove prior-art and other defenses when these cases happen. When even the giant corporations feel like the patent situation is interfering with their business, we might actually make some progress on reforming things. Really though, I just wish the whole silly mess would just go away.
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 16:32 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] A victory on any patent claim would be enough to block the loser from shipping product and paying substantial damages. The judge isn't reducing the number of claims to three; the judge is allowing Oracle to pick the three claims that Oracle thinks will be easiest to prevail on and that will cause the most damage to Google if they win. There are limited numbers of judges; a demand by Oracle for what is in effect 132 separate trials for each of the separate claims is excessive. This kind of thing is not that unusual.
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 18:00 UTC (Thu) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link]
Yes, but by removing 129 claims from present and future consideration, Google is in a much better position to work around the remaining 3 claims, if necessary. Which is not to say that Oracle's 3 strongest claims will be easy to work around.
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 19:58 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]
If I understand correctly, if Oracle manages to win in the court in the "3 patent sudden death", the other 129 infringements will be automatically proven and Google has to licence/workaround them...
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 20:30 UTC (Thu) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link]
IANAL, but it seems that there are (1) damages for past infringement, and (2) license fees for future use. I can see how "3 patent sudden death" could be used to settle the issue of past infringement, but how is it to determine the effectiveness of future "workarounds" for the 129 unexamined claims? OTOH, what is a "new product" -- does any modification that attempts to work around the unexamined claims lead to a new product? Is Android on a tablet/netbook/personal spacecraft/... a new product?
No. They have lost the 129 claims. Posted May 6, 2011 0:54 UTC (Fri) by SilverWave (guest, #55000) [Link]
IANAL but:
"Oracle will surrender all of its present infringement claims against Google based on the 129 asserted claims that will not be tried. Oracle may not renew those infringement claims in a subsequent action except as to new products."
So no they have lost the 129 claims.
I'm not sure of the underlying justification for such a huge reduction but welcome it regardless.
Oracle can no longer attempted to snow Google under with a mountain of paperwork.
Google will now be able to focus all of its efforts into the remaining 3 claims.
This looks to be a huge win for Google.
I will be looking on with interest as to the reasons for such action by the Judge... I mean were the 129 claims very weak or flawed in some way?
very very interesting.
No. They have lost the 129 claims. Posted May 6, 2011 14:32 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Well, from the Groklaw article, apparently the Judge asked the combatants to "reduce the claims to a manageable number".
Google said "2 claims and 4 defences". Oracle didn't respond.
So, seen in THAT light, this is quite a big loss for Google :-) Oracle got 50% more than Google wanted to give, and they didn't even have to ask for it!
Cheers,
No. They have lost the 129 claims. Posted May 7, 2011 20:47 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Yes, but they asked for 2 prior art defenses/claim, and now they get 2.67! Woo!
Quote from PJ: Posted May 6, 2011 1:00 UTC (Fri) by SilverWave (guest, #55000) [Link]
Groklaw:
Quote from PJ:
"So, 132 Oracle claims down to 3, and the rest are deep-sixed forever, not to be seen again. That obviously will also cut back on any possible damages. Methinks this judge has a clue. "
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 5, 2011 21:03 UTC (Thu) by Kluge (guest, #2881) [Link]
I'll take your word for it that this kind of thing is not unusual. However, it does seem to defy logic that future consideration of the other 129 claims must be forgone. Suppose Oracle's estimate of which claims have the best chance of prevailing are wrong? That hardly makes their other patents invalid.
In other words, while I'm happy to see the danger to an important FOSS system reduced, the way it's happening reaffirms the appearance of breakage in the existing patent/litigation system.
Reducing the number of claims is not the same thing Posted May 11, 2011 20:41 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Imagine a trial for a serial killer where the judge decided that 32 counts of murder was too many. Perhaps just four of the cases should be brought against the defendant with the result being binding for all of them. If the killer got off, none of the remaining 28 could be raised in court ever.This happens, routinely, in every English-derived court system that I know of (inasmuch as trials of serial killers are ever 'routine', that is).
Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw) Posted May 5, 2011 22:58 UTC (Thu) by aliguori (subscriber, #30636) [Link]
Patents are composed of a series of claims. Claims can reference each other and so you typically have dependent claims and independent claims. A patent can easily have dozens of dependent claims but usually has just a couple of independent claims.
When consider if a patent is valid at all, you don't have to worry about dependent claims because if you can prove the independent claims are invalid, then the dependent claims are also invalid by transitivity.
Combine this with the notion that some patents may refer to other patents in a dependent sense and this sort of reduction is not at all out of the ordinary.
Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw) Posted May 6, 2011 2:45 UTC (Fri) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]
Judge: tl;dr
Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw) Posted May 6, 2011 16:53 UTC (Fri) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]
Made me laugh! Thanks.
Oracle ordered to reduce claims against Google from 132 to 3 (Groklaw) Posted May 6, 2011 13:59 UTC (Fri) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]
Me thinks the judge has an Android phone :P
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