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A jury on Monday found Google had infringed Oracle's copyrights on the APIs (application programming interfaces) in Java, but wasunable to agree on whether that infringement was protected by "fairuse," which allows for copying under certain circumstances. With the jury hung on that issue, Oracle had asked the judge in thecase, William Alsup, to rule as a matter of law that Google's fairuse defense was invalid. Such rulings are granted when a judge,having heard all the evidence in a case, concludes there is noquestion left for a jury to decide. Alsup ruled from the bench Wednesday that he was denying themotion. "I don't think it would be right to rule in favor ofOracle," he said. It doesn't mean Google has escaped liability for copyrightinfringement, but it means the question of fair use will probablynow go to another jury. That means a partial retrial of the case ismore likely. Alsup made his ruling from the bench after two hours of intenseargument from trial lawyers for Google and Oracle. The argumentsalso touched on a bigger, more important issue in the case -- thatof whether the Java APIs can be copyrighted under U.S. law at all.The judge said he is "working hard on that" question and did notyet make a ruling. Alsup did rule in Oracle's favor on two smaller issues. Google hadasked Alsup to overturn the jury's finding that it infringedOracle's copyright by copying nine lines of code in Java known asthe rangeCheck function, and by copying documentation thataccompanies the Java APIs. Alsup denied both motions, saying thejury reached those decisions on reasonable grounds. While Alsup decides how to deal with Monday's partial verdict oncopyright infringement, the jury has already moved onto the nextphase of the trial, to assess Oracle's patent claims. They heard testimony on the patent issues Wednesday morning from Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, fromother engineers, and from one of Oracle's hired experts. There are only two patents at issue in the trial, however, one ofwhich expires at the end of this year, and Oracle's copyrightclaims are considered more significant. Oracle sued Google in 2010, accusing it of infringing its Javapatents and copyrights in Google's Android OS. Google says it builtAndroid using publically available Java code and by creating aclean room version of Sun's Java virtual machine. The trial is a complicated one with several overlapping threads.Separate from the arguments Wednesday, Google filed a motion lastnight asking that the proceedings be declared a mistrial , on the grounds that the issues of infringement and fair use mustbe decided together, not by separate juries. Alsup has yet to rule on that motion but has done all he canthroughout the case to avoid a retrial. "I hate to even contemplate the idea of another trial, but if itcomes to that, that's the way it will have to be," he said at onepoint. James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news forIDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai . James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Hydraulic Axial Pump , Vickers Pump , and more. For more , please visit Rexroth Pumps today!
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