Oracle Corp and Google faced off on Tuesday in
a $9 billion copyright retrial, with Oracle accusing Google of stealing
programming to become the world's leading smartphone player and Google
saying it acted legally as a true innovator.
Oracle claims Google's Android smartphone
operating system violated its copyright on parts of the Java programming
language, while Alphabet Inc's Google says it should be able to use
Java without paying a fee under the fair-use provision of copyright law.
The dispute previously went to trial in 2012,
but a jury deadlocked. If the new jury in San Francisco federal court
rules against Google on fair use, then it will consider Oracle's $9
billion damages request.
The case has been closely watched by software
developers who fear an Oracle victory could spur more software copyright
lawsuits. However, investors see little risk for Google because the
company could afford to pay a one-off fine, and the possibility of an
injunction that would force Google to pay ongoing royalties to Oracle
appears remote.
In court on Tuesday, Google Executive Chairman
Eric Schmidt testified that he always believed Google could freely use
Java because Schmidt personally unveiled the programming language in
1995 when he was a top executive at Sun Microsystems, which invented it.
Oracle subsequently acquired Sun.
Oracle argues that Google improperly used Java
to quickly deliver an Android smartphone to market. Under cross
examination, Schmidt acknowledged that he had been on Apple's board and
felt "strategic pressure" from the iPhone in 2007.
Under U.S. copyright law, "fair use" allows
limited use of material without acquiring permission from the rights
holder for purposes such as research.
Oracle attorney Peter Bicks said about 100,000
Android smartphones will have been activated by the time he finished
his hour-long opening statement. That translated into $42 billion in
revenue, he said, and all those phones contained Oracle's property.
Google's defense cannot cover what they did with Java, Bicks said, calling it the "fair-use excuse."
Google attorney Robert Van Nest said fair use
allows a company to use copyrighted material to make money, so long as
the company adds something innovative. Google's talented engineers were
responsible for developing Android, not a tiny portion of Java owned by
Oracle, he said.
"They want all the credit for Android's
success, and apparently billions of dollars in damages, but the evidence
isn't going to support that," Van Nest said in opening statements.
Post a Comment