Oracle, Google Move To Streamline Java Suit 49
itwbennett writes "Google and Oracle each submitted proposals on Friday to reduce the number of claims in their Java patent infringement lawsuit, which could help bring the case to a speedier conclusion. Earlier this month, lawyers for the two companies gave Judge William Alsup of the US District Court in San Francisco a crash course in Java to prepare him for a claim construction conference."
The only possible winners are (Score:5, Insightful)
...the lawyers.
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The only way to win is not to play.
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The thing about that is - and this applies equally to thermonuclear war - it only works if both players stop playing.
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Who said that there are only two players?
Re:The only possible winners are (Score:4, Interesting)
Because giant corporation just love to throw away cash ? If Oracle wins and Google has to pay license fees for their Android implementation of Java Oracle will not only have protected its lucrative Java business from similar shenanigans in the future but it will go home with a pile of cash much bigger than what they are paying their law department. You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't pay.
Fine couture, indeed (Score:4, Funny)
So is a Java suit anything like a Zoot suit? Always wanted one o' them. Will the Gap be selling these?
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So is a Java suit anything like a Zoot suit?
No, it is more like a Leisure Suit Larry Ellison.
Lawyers gave a crash course is Java?? (Score:2)
Lawyers gave a crash course is Java??
Should it have been programmers or someone more oriented towards programming?
Re:Lawyers gave a crash course is Java?? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lawyers gave a crash course is Java?? (Score:5, Funny)
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You can't get more impartial about a Java lawsuit than FORTRAN programmers...
That might just be the Alzheimer's at work, though.
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That won't work. You need at least 12 people on a jury.
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Re:Lawyers gave a crash course is Java?? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, its from a technical perspective. /. article
From the linked
Lawyers for Oracle and Google gave Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco an overview of Java and why it was invented, and an explanation of terms such as bytecode, compiler, class library and machine-readable code. The tutorial was to prepare him for a claim construction conference in two weeks, where he'll have to sort out disputes between the two sides about how language in Oracle's Java patents should be interpreted. At one point an attorney for Google, Scott Weingaertner, described how a typical computer is made up of applications, an OS and the hardware underneath. 'I understand that much,' Alsup said, asking him to move on. But he had to ask several questions to grasp some aspects of Java, including the concept of Java class libraries. 'Coming into today's hearing, I couldn't understand what was meant by a class,' he admitted."
Re:Lawyers gave a crash course is Java?? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, its from a technical perspective. From the linked /. article
Lawyers for Oracle and Google gave Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco an overview of Java and why it was invented, and an explanation of terms such as bytecode, compiler, class library and machine-readable code. The tutorial was to prepare him for a claim construction conference in two weeks, where he'll have to sort out disputes between the two sides about how language in Oracle's Java patents should be interpreted. At one point an attorney for Google, Scott Weingaertner, described how a typical computer is made up of applications, an OS and the hardware underneath. 'I understand that much,' Alsup said, asking him to move on. But he had to ask several questions to grasp some aspects of Java, including the concept of Java class libraries. 'Coming into today's hearing, I couldn't understand what was meant by a class,' he admitted."
Not only is it a good idea in general to know what you're talking about, I posit that it should be made illegal to preside over a case unless you understand the basics of what is disputed... As in cases such as this, a brief crash course can be given. A simple quiz about the subject could be given to judges and jurors alike to deem if they are fit to pass judgment.
Additionally, I think the patent system should also apply this methodology to their examiners. Clearly, the examiner that allowed the "swinging on swing sideways" patent application [google.com] to be granted in 2002 was not properly educated about the common use of swings in general... A bit of education in this respect could have saved lots of tax payer dollars spent on the re-examination and subsequent invalidation of the bogus "business method" patent.
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here's a crash course on android java.
my main "activity"(aka applet/application/midlet) has imports like import android.util.Log; import android.app.Activity; etc,
but here's the imports from the rendering class that actually does something else than just interface input and os things,
import java.io.IOException;import java.io.InputStream;import java.nio.ByteBuffer;import java.nio.ByteOrder;import java.nio.FloatBuffer;
import java.util.concurrent.Semaphore;import javax.microedition.khronos.egl.EGLConfig;import
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You do realise that Oracle is suing Google (mostly) over patents on the (J)VM, and not copyright over the use of the "java" namespace, right?
java.io isn't exactly covered (or even coverable) by patent...
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"Namespaces"
Abstract:
Process or method of encapsulating program code under a shared hierarchal grouping identified through arbitrary names
Surely an Exception course? (Score:3, Funny)
Java apps don't crash they throw exceptions or the JVM dies.
More poo slinging... (Score:5, Funny)
The last time something like this happened, Adobe acquired Macromedia... It's how large guerrilla's get to know each other.
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I think we are talking gorillas of the 800lb kind, not guerrillas of the Afganistani warlord type...
Re:More poo slinging... (Score:4, Funny)
Unless, of course, your guerillas also weigh 800 pounds. Sumo guerillas, anyone?
Re:More poo slinging... (Score:4, Funny)
Unless, of course, your guerillas also weigh 800 pounds. Sumo guerillas, anyone?
No no.. A guerrilla should never be weighed in pounds -- That's a currency unit you dolt. They can cost 800 pounds, but no gorilla or guerrilla is worth it's weight in pounds!
The real 800 pound gorilla in the room is that this saying depends on the current exchange rate for gorillas, eh? I can never figure out if that saying refers to an expensive, cheap, or reasonably priced ape. What's the going exchange rate for gorillas these days in Loonies? [wikipedia.org]
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a pound is a pound is weight -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sterling#History
guess you're the 'you doit' here
- Macaroni Hat
Whooooosh
crash course in Java - a Google perspective (Score:5, Funny)
-- Sun --
Imagine a box of Smalltalk.
Imagine someone dropping that box in a festering pit of C. (Not all pits of C are festering. This one is.)
Redefine "API" as "buzzword implementation".
Extend according to what the competition's doing, rather than as may be technically appropriate.
-- Google --
Recall how Microsoft made Java incompatible and how nerds all hated it.
Recall that you are Google and all nerds love you.
Do the same thing.
Watch your market grow to Apple levels of hysteria.
Observe Hank Scorpio [youtube.com] taking over Java.
Take out the flame retardant lawyers, and, in a scenario looking increasingly Monty Python, use them to teach judges Java. ...
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What Google did to Java barely has anything to do with what Microsoft did. Are you aware of that?
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True. Microsoft tried to get you to use Microsoft's platform-specific extensions to standard Java specifications, locking you in to the Microsoft platform, while Google requires you to use Google's.
SPIN city (Score:1)
Oracle made the lawsuit, it means Oracle are accepting many of their claims were baseless, and doesn't want them listed in court.
The 'spin' that this is to streamline the case is rubbish.
Umm.. Streamline? (Score:3)
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Judge Can't Cram classes.*; for Court (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer Science and software engineering are rife with themes. Many so-called inventions and 'new' ideas are applying these tried and true themes to a new permutation of some old problem. For instance, folding two loops together to reap stale items in a hash-table while simultaneously doing a query by iterating across a bucket list (a previous but recent slashdot patent posting). You can tell someone (a Judge) what JIT is, that it effectively combines caching of already-compiled code with partial compilation, but he can't appreciate that software engineering and computer science are pervaded by the concepts of caching, and right-sizing work. He can't possibly appreciate how obvious some of these 'inventions' are, and rank them fairly on a scale of truly inventive (LZW in my opinion) to 'someone-skilled-in-the-art-could-do-that' (twiddling bits in FAT to support short file-names). I think this is in general the primary source of frustration for engineers and scientists: that judges and patent clerks who really have no good sense of taste or knowlege on the matter make such important decisions. Redhat pointed out once that in the _vast_ majority of patent suits, the person being sued is never accused of actually _reading_ the patent, but infringing accidentally. People don't read software patents, so their claimed benefit of being able to publish great ideas by protecting them for the inventor is just bunk: society eats the bar while the inventor is anomolously protected for really no reason. They are basically landmines that only rich or organized people can buy, and most of the community knows it. Giving judges crash courses in Java is a promising start, but its also a depressing reminder of how far we have to go.
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+100 Insightful.
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> He can't possibly appreciate how obvious some of these
> 'inventions' are,
That's where the adversarial system of plaintiff vs. defendant succeeds. Proviso, the litigant, combatants are equally resource rich, i.e., matched. No man, nor judge is omniscient, men are ignorant on all but their singular competency. Thou thinkest too much of modern informatik.
Damn...but for the lack of an 'e' (Score:1)
I hate when I misread the title...it's sad how happy appending an 'e' to the last word would make me.
Excellent news (Score:2)