This story is interesting. Oracle bought out Sun, which owned some patents relating to Java. Google used Java in their Android mobile phone. Oracle is now suing Google over patent infringement.
I thought that Java was supposed to be an "open language". I guess it isn't. That shows the fallacy of relying on a language controlled by a large corporation. Sun may have been more openminded, but that policy ends after an acquisition by Oracle.
Oracle is a "patent troll" now? When a corporation is losing its market share, the executives start relying on lawsuits and corporate welfare, rather than making a good product.
Oracle is suing Google. Oracle is threatening to sue manufacturers who make Android phones. This lawsuit is a boon for Apple.
Google used Java in their Android phone. Oracle is selling a "smartphone-enhanced" version of Java. Instead of buying smartphone-enhanced Java from Oracle, Google's software engineers wrote their own implementation of Java. Oracle claims this implementation of Java infringes on Oracle's patents.
When Oracle bought Sun, they also acquired control of mySQL. Some people say that this is a risk, for businesses that use mySQL. Oracle has cut back support for mySQL, because mySQL directly competes with Oracle's database product. However, someone could "fork" the public version of mySQL. The only thing Oracle owns is the "mySQL" name, and the right to sell non-GPL versions of mySQL.
Some people say "Smartphone technology is patented and owned by several large corporations. It's illegal for someone to start a new smartphone business. It's practically guaranteed they'd be violating someone's patent."
State insiders use patents to quash competition. Under the guise of "Rule of law! Protect the little inventor!", insiders use patents to extort and prevent competition.
Lawsuits regarding patents/trademarks/copyrights are completely "legal extortion". The plaintiff in an "intellectual property" lawsuit is using the corrupt State "justice" system to extort.
"Intellectual property" is not property. "Intellectual property" is an evil fnord that sets the debate in the wrong frame. It should be called "intellectual unproperty".
Suppose I was a prospective juror in the Oracle vs. Google software patent lawsuit. As a software engineer, I'm automatically disqualified. I know too much about software. Therefore, I'm ineligible to be a juror!
Really, the judge and jury in a software patent lawsuit should all be software engineers. The corrupt State legal system has it backwards.
The judge knows nothing about software. The jury knows nothing about software. Given those conditions, why not roll the dice and sue? Oracle gains $1B+ if they win. The only cost is their legal fees if they lose.
The judge is trying to determine "What is legal?", when he knows nothing about software. How can the trial outcome possibly be fair?
Patents are not a valid form of property. "Protect the little guy inventor!" is the official excuse for patents. As actually implemented, insiders use patent lawsuits and the threat of a patent lawsuit to extort. Copying an idea is not like stealing a car.
There's a massive State brainwashing campaign to convince people "Patents are property." There's a massive State brainwashing campaign to convince people that "intellectual property" should be treated like real property.
Oracle is suing Google for patent infringement. This is entirely legal extortion. The judge and jury know nothing about software. The "justice" system is completely corrupt. Why shouldn't Oracle's CEO take a gamble and sue Google? If they're wrong, they only lose their legal expenses. If they're right, they win $1B+.
In the corrupt USA legal system, if you have a successful business, other people will file lawsuits to extort from you. The most desirable legal extortion victim is one with tangible assets that can be stolen. If you have a successful business, State parasites have a free option to sue you and extort part of your business.
Even if you ultimately prevail in trial, the "legal extortion" victim doesn't recover his legal expenses.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Oracle Sues Google Over Java/Android
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8 comments:
You are completely correct.
If a jury and judge knows nothing about software, how can they give a fair trial?
Recently in the UK, an author, qualified in I think medicine, was sued over a book he wrote by chiropractors.
Again the judge and lawyers know nothing about medicine or statistics. How can they give a fair verdict? Instead they spent two years and hundreds of thousands of pounds debating on whether the author's statement was fair comment or the truth.
In the end the judge said the court can't be a "ministry of truth".
I believe the trial just fell apart and nothing was achieved other that wasting two years of the author's life and two hundred thousand pounds of his money.
Instead of the clown lawyers, they should have just got some statisticians in to evaluate what the experimental evidence or clinical trials (if any) prove.
"Is there a mathematician in the court room?"
No, just a bunch of clowns that were too stupid to study medicine, science or maths at university.
Ironically there parasite clowns are earning more than if they did an honest form of work.
Instead of doing real work, these jokers make money spending years deciding on the meaning of a few words.
This is one of the best arguments in favor of a "loser pays" legal system. If Oracle loses, they'd have to pay Google's legal expenses.
Of course, no matter who prevails in court, it's the lawyers who always win.
C++ was thought to be full of pitfalls (implicit copying of memory etc) and most people did not know the full scope of the language.
As such Java was developed. It is a cut-down version of C++ with the nasty, difficult bits that are likely to trip people over taken out.
I don't know what these patents are for, but if it relates to the Java language itself it is difficult to envisage something in Java that isn't also in C++.
Patents are about mechanism. They is nothing in the language itself that is not in C++.
If they are talking about networking, then I'm sure Unix and Linux are full of prior art.
There are also garbage collectors for languages other than Java as well.
Javasoft's Swing GUI library was nice and at the time much nicer that Microsoft's MFC. Now Microsoft has .NET with proper object orientated GUI libraries.
Indeed judges don't understand software. I heard one court found a word processor infringed the copyright of another word processor because they had XYZ compatibility helpers which mirrored just the menu system of a competitor word processor. Now consider all the many source files that make up software. The menu layout is just one tiny part and trivial compared to all the other things that needed to be written. I think an appeal court threw out the first ruling.
But on technical matters FSK is very right. Courts will give random rulings.
Even in black and white contract law I've seen one court make a bad ruling which was thrown out on appeal. The defendants couldn't afford a barrister for the appeal and so had to argue the case themselves. They were more successful that the first lawyer they hired (c.f. beautician versus property company in the UK)!!!
In home defence in the UK, courts give different sentences. One poor man and his family were kidnapped at knife point by 3 men. Their son could not be found. So the businessman chased after one of the knife thugs. He hit the knife thug with a cricket bat and was sent to jail. An appeal court freed him but he still kept the criminal record for defending his family against knife thugs.
Two knife thugs got away. The thug that was caught was let off with no prison time.
The victims are punished in the UK. The criminals go free.
I got into a fight with a competitor over some technology he was trying to patent which I had invented years earlier and had been selling for more than 10 years before he came on the scene and everybody seemed to know the history except him. Finally, realizing he was wrong, his lawyer wanted to assure me that he would definitely never sue me and would offer me a free license to use my own invention. Among the many objections to this insane offer I had, one was that when he sells his company to a larger predator I am screwed.
Based on what I have personally witnessed, I think 50% of all patent lawsuits in this industry are someone who stole a technology suing the original inventor.
Loser pays is a terrible system because the party with the most money is far more likely to prevail in every case regardless of facts. They can also afford to keep appealing until the other party goes bankrupt.
Loser pays would give total control over the legal system to the rich.
The defect in "loser pays" is that a non-insider could not afford to sue an insider. The insider could rack up $1M in legal bills, and stick the plaintiff with the bill when they win.
The defect in "loser doesn't pay" is that an insider can sue a non-insider, forcing them to rack up legal expenses defending themselves.
The real evil is the State justice monopoly. "Loser pays!" and "Loser doesn't pay!" are ways to attempt to patch a corrupt system.
The State legal system is so corrupt and inefficient. The State licensing cartel for lawyers drives up prices. The legal system is so complicated that you need a lawyer, or judges will be biased against you.
It's a complete perversion of justice, that a lawsuit costs $10k-$50k+ for each party. That makes justice only accessible to insiders. That leads to "justice" instead of justice.
For example, I was the victim of medical malpractice. I made the tactical decision that it wasn't worth pursing a claim. It would have taken years, $50k+, and I probably wouldn't win anyway. Effectively, the mental health industry has purchases "sovereign immunity" via a corrupt legal system.
If I knew the cost would have been less than $10k and I knew the lawsuit would only take a few months, then I might have pursued it. The corrupt State justice monopoly legitimized medical malpractice.
I think in the UK, the situation is that the loser is supposed to pay.
However even with a court judgment against the loser it may be difficult to recover any money. Courts don't recover money on your behalf. It is up to you. So if you are an individual you can be out of luck.
Plus that libel trial about the book mentioning chiropractors in the UK just dissolved into nothing. The newspapers didn't report any losers or winners. The newspapers reported the author lost 200, 000 UK pounds despite no newspaper reported winners. Not sure about this. The newspaper reports weren't clear. But they did report the massive cost to the defendant.
Plus if a case never reaches court, you are still stuck with a bill of several thousands pounds just for a few lawyer letters exchanging hands.
I'm sure the dishonest lawyers and their bent clients know this. If you never submit your cases to court you can get away with legal harassment and cost your victim quite a bit of money.
On TV shows, they always show the lawyer going to all lengths to protect their client. The reality is different.
In the UK, one man and one woman were fired from their jobs with NO CAUSE. They had been in their jobs for about 10 years. The statutory law says they should have been paid redundancy money. However the company told the man and the woman they would not get paid their last month's wages unless they went to a lawyer to sign a statement saying they would not sue for their redundancy money. The company would PAY FOR THE LAWYER. Talk about a conflict of interest here!!! The man did nothing. The woman went to a lawyer who told her she would win a trial, but courts in the UK take ages to do anything and the cost is high. This is bullshit. It can take as little as a couple of months to go to an Industrial Tribunal and custom is that costs as never awarded against the ex-employee. Each side pays their own costs.
The lawyer convinced the woman to sign the document saying she wouldn't sue. The lawyer, despite being the fired woman's lawyer, was paid by the company.
This seems like a scam to me, so that lawyers can be paid off to protect companies. Instead of the woman getting her lawfully entitled to money, a lawyer gets a part of it.
So lawyers in this case are paid to make sure THE LAW IS NOT ENFORCED.
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