I’m not a lawyer and I don’t pretend to be one, but the latest round of back and forth in the Oracle/Google battle over Java in Android is really…..interesting (to say the least).
In a series of legal filings this week, Google’s attorney’s have both asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to re-examine Oracle’s patents while also claiming that even if the patents are valid – Android is using them under ‘fair use’ provisions.
Fair Use – is always a dicey subject in my opinion. In any event this is what Google’s legal counsel wrote in their filing dated Feb 16th (and thankfully put on the web by great people at Groklaw):
To the extent that any protectable elements of the Works are used in Android, such use would also qualify as a fair use under 17 U.S.C. �� 107. The Works are technical works subject to limited copyright protection, and Oracle has only identified a very small portion of the Works as allegedly being copied. Android’s use of those portions is for functional technical reasons, is needed for interoperability, and is transformative, resulting in a new and significantly different work.
The bottom line in this whole case has to do with only one thing in my opinion.
Money.
