Google beats Oracle on copyright claims

Google's arguments on Java copyright have prevailed over Oracle's in their Android patent/copyright case. The copyright side of Oracle's case always struck me as much weaker, and much less was at stake in any case, but this ends Oracle's attempt to own some aspect of Android. Oracle can appeal, but their case was weak, their patent case gets weaker as one of their two patents is about to be invalidated, judge Alsup bent over backwards to accommodate Oracle, and his reasoning is clear. Oracle would have a much higher bar to clear on appeal.

Google always argued that this case was more FUD than substance, and they were right.

I'll update as I read more.

Android beats Oracle patent claims

The verdict on patents went largely as expected, no infringement. Most of Oracle's claims were dismissed before the case went to trial, one of the four two patents at issue in trial is about to be overturned, and software patent claims tend to fall apart once tested in court. Only people who think Florian Mueller is an authoritative source on software patents will be surprised by this verdict.

Oracle's copyright claims are all that remain at issue in this trial. The jury found only 9 lines of RangeCheck code as infringing, they could not decide Oracle's larger SSO claims on API headers. So the SSO claims are up to judge Alsup.

The only remaining patent threats to the Android ecosystem are Apple's "We have a patent on rounded corners" and "We've patented s/\b(999-999-9999)\b/<a href="call:$1">$1<\/a>/g", claims so weak that Apple won't take on Google directly, and Microsoft's behind-the-scenes machinations. Both of these are rear-guard attempts by aging companies to keep a lid on innovation, and both are likely to go the way of all the patent claims against Linux.

Hopefully Google will continue on the course of knocking down patents rather than settling. Knocking down software patents expands the competitive space for all players in the software industry, and makes room for small, disruptive players to transform whole business segments.

Nook & Microsoft?

Barnes & Noble has settled with Microsoft on their patent dispute, and taken Microsoft on as a partner in their soon to be spun off Nook business:

The new subsidiary, referred to in this release as Newco, will bring together the digital and College businesses of Barnes & Noble. Microsoft will make a $300 million investment in Newco at a post-money valuation of $1.7 billion in exchange for an approximately 17.6% equity stake. Barnes & Noble will own approximately 82.4% of the new subsidiary, which will have an ongoing relationship with the company’s retail stores. Barnes & Noble has not yet decided on the name of Newco.

Florian Mueller gives the Florian Mueller take (Yay patents! Stupid open source lawyers.):

The fact that Barnes & Noble partners with Microsoft proves, if anyone still needed any proof, that its mostly antitrust-related "patent misuse" allegations against Microsoft, which the ITC threw out even ahead of trial and refused to reconsider, were bogus claims borne out of desperation (for lack of patents that could be used to bring counterclaims), possibly misguided by certain lawyers who self-servingly raised totally false hopes in Barnes & Noble's management as to what they could achieve by shouting "antitrust! antitrust!"

 The actual story looks more interesting. Microsoft has invested $300 million for a minority stake in a spin-off of a $1.3 billion dollar business. Microsoft also gets some unspecified royalty payments on patents from that new business. B&N is a retail book store in trouble, it needs saving. Microsoft is a software business with a lot of cash, but at imminent risk of decline. It needs a way forward in the industry. Forward is the Apple, Google, Amazon direction: content stores on many devices.

Nook gives Microsoft a key content platform and two avenues forward. It gives them a content store that Microsoft's clout can help expand to music and movies, it adds that store to Windows Phone/7/8, and it gives them a hedge in an Android tablet platform. Microsoft gives Nook money.

All in all not a bad deal for some dodgy patents and $300 million dollars.


Update: PaidContent weighs in, with some clarity on where the patent litigation was heading, and why Microsoft would pay $300 million to make it go away:

By settling with B&N, Microsoft avoids an ugly court battle that might not have been decided in its favor. Like most companies that wield patents as weapons, the goal is to prevent competition and maximize royalties. Microsoft has no dog in the e-reader fight, so the partnership with B&N makes sense for Microsoft anyway.

Update 2: Now TechCrunch, but with more details (money):

A section called “Commercial Agreement” notes that Microsoft will be paying the Barnes & Noble subsidiary $180 million in connection with revenue sharing on the Nook app that B&N will make for the Windows 8 platform. This is nonrefundable, the filing notes. Microsoft is also paying $125 million (equal to $25 million over five years) “for purposes of assisting NewCo in acquiring local digital reading content and technology development.” This, too, looks to be nonrefundable.

So, maybe the number is over $600 million. More reason to think this would expand the Nook store beyond books. If the number Microsoft is investing is over half a billion, Microsoft looks more like the desperate party. The danger for B&N is that they go the way of Nokia, anchored to a sinking platform.

A venerable wince

Jean-Louis Gassée wrote an analysis of Nokia's situation which contains this key piece of speculation:

Apparently, the current Windows Phone OS is built on the venerable Windows CE kernel. Setting veneration aside, Microsoft would have decided to use a more modern foundation for Windows Phone 8. And said modern foundation would not run on today’s hardware.

Classic Microsoft, and hence the paucity of developers embracing Windows Phone. No amount of marketing can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, the people writing code have to deal with the real platform, not the glossy ads. Apple's solid Unix foundation in iOS, plus the thin Objective-C framework, are a winner in mobile. Android's Linux, plus a heavy Java framework, struggles. But a Wince OS with yet another half-baked Microsoft framework is DOA for developers.

And more from Dan Frommer, on Microsoft's terrible mobile comback and Windows 8 prospects:

But it will, again, have to be so amazing that people and/or carriers will really take notice and consciously switch their allegiance. And the odds of that happening, based on Microsoft's track record in mobile, are slim.

 The only, desperate, hope I've seen came from a comment on Gassée's piece:

An Android injunction as a result of the current Oracle-Google trial (Probability? Is anyone paying attention?) would open the doors wide open for Nokia Windows phones

 The probability is practically non-existent. At worst a judge would order payments on RAND terms, but it is far more likely that Oracle will lose in its attempts to copyright Java.

"Windows Phone also hasn’t penetrated the market as strongly as expected"

What idiots expected Windows Phone to penetrate the market? Why do people take PR "analysts" seriously?

Everyone is pivoting off of this Reuters story on Nokia Lumina's disappointing performance in Europe.
TechCrunch,  SlashGear, CNet, MobileBurn. Not a big surprise to anyone who has done development on Windows Phone.

When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil

- James Carville

March 2, 2012: Obama calls Sandra Fluke
March 25, 2012: If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon

I'm waiting for the Latino hit.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Dan Lyons has a funny, pointed post covering what I mentioned earlier, in the context of Path's privacy violations:

Arrington and Siegler can try to play journalism police all they want, but the fact is they have turned themselves into hacks for hire and as such have lost all credibility. They’re not the only ones working this racket. Now we have PandoDaily, a new tech blog crated by their TechCrunch pal Sarah Lacy and funded by CrunchFund and a bunch of other VCs and angels whose companies PandoDaily aims to cover.

But what is hilarious is the reaction Dan's attack provoked, Arrington:

He says that our insanely over subscribed venture fund is just a joke. He says our work at TechCrunch over the last six years is a joke. He says MG is a joke. He drags Pando Daily and Techmeme into the fight and trashes them too.

I’m surprised that my mother wasn’t mentioned, frankly.

Oh my fur and whiskers!  Then Siegler:

That passion is conveyed in our writing. And it’s conveyed when we meet with startups. Ask any company in our portfolio why they accepted us as investors. That Dan Lyons would imply it’s some sort of shakedown shows how very clueless he is.

And it shows exactly why he could never do what we do. His words reek of jealousy. Of disillusionment. He’s angry. He doesn’t get it. And worst of all, he simply does not matter anymore. The only time he did was as a joke. He’s that guy who used to be that guy that was pretending to be Steve Jobs once upon a time. That must be extremely frustrating.

It's hard to believe people could be this obtuse, the other possibility is that Lyons hit too close to home. Given the amount of projection the latter is most likely. Then again Siegler just discovered how defensive patents work, and only recently discovered how ignorant he is, so maybe he really is that dim.