[He is] a sheep in sheep's clothing - Winston Churchill
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Google and Oracle want the moon on a stick
THE US LEGAL SYSTEM seems to be getting sick of the patent argument nonsense between Oracle and Google.
The firms are embroiled in an argument over Java and its alleged use in the Android operating system. Potential damages have been discussed frequently and on wildly differing ends of the abacus and apparently this has really ticked off US District Judge William Alsup.
"You're both asking for the moon and you should be more reasonable," said Judge Alsup in a hearing attended by Reuters.
If Judge Alsup is offended by the numbers being mentioned it is not surprising. According to Reuters Oracle has been paying a damages expert $700 an hour to work out that Google owes it somewhere between $1.4bn and $6.1bn.
Google hasn't done itself any favours either, mind you, and Judge Alsup was equally annoyed by the low value that it puts on the problem.
"Zero is ridiculous," he said. "They're totally wrong on that." µ
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If zero damages for releasing Android is "ridiculous", that's bad. It implies that Android is naughty and arguably shouldn't be allowed at all. And that would m!suit peosle other than Oracle with deep pockets just fine.
Or maybe what the judge means to say is that "zero damages IF Android DOES infringe Oracle intellectual property, which it may or may not be found to do, is ridiculous."
That would be less bad for Google.