Oracle denied another Java trial

We will keep appealing until we win

Oracle’s attempts to get a new trial on Java API’s have been rejected by a Judge who happens to know about programming.

Oracle lost a case when a Jury decided that the use of 37 Java APIs in Android was fair use.

Oracle thought that those 37 APIs were worth $ 9 billion and it asked for a new trail claiming that Google concealed information during discovery on its plans to integrate Android apps with the Chrome OS running on desktops and laptops, thus extending the scope of the infringement beyond smartphones and tablets.

District Judge William Alsup, who is a hobby programmer when he is not running the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied Oracle’s request for a new trial, which would have been the third time the case has been tried.

In the decision he said that in 2015, Google began a new project, which it called internally as ARC++. Its aim was to provide Chrome OS users with Play Android apps on Chrome OS without developer action.

“ARC++ would run an isolated instance of Android (with all of Android’s public APIs, including those reimplemented from Java) in order to allow users to run all Android apps on Chrome OS devices. Google planned to include its ‘Play Store’ — Google’s app wherein users could purchase and download other Android apps — as part of ARC++ to facilitate access to those apps,” wrote Judge Alsup in his order.

However, the Judge did agree that Google had “stonewalled and had completely concealed the ARC++ project.” He said that Google had produced at least nine documents discussing the goals and technical details of ARC++ in 2015, at least five months before trial.

He said that Oracle’s failure to review the ARC++ documents was its own fault.

Judge Alsup pointed out that the evidence on ARC++ would not have impacted the trial in May because any evidence relating to implementations of Android on devices other than smartphones and tablets fell outside its scope.

“It may well be true that the use of the copyrighted APIs in ARC++ (or any other later use) will not qualify as a fair use, but that will not and does not mean that Google’s argument on transformative use as to the original uses on trial (smartphones and tablets) was improper. That Oracle failed to detect the ARC++ documents in its possession had no consequence within the defined scope of our trial,” Judge Alsup wrote.

Google’s launch of the full Android system on the Chrome OS is even now in its preliminary stages and available only to developers and on a limited set of devices, the Judge said.

The Judge’s order also dismissed Oracle’s demand for a new trial because of the exclusion of what the judge described as “minor evidence and testimony” from Stefano Mazzocchi, a member of the board of directors of the Apache Software Foundation in 2008.

It also rejected Oracle’s contention that the court had improperly excluded its document containing replies to the European Commission, which had asked for an explanation of the dispute between Google and Sun Microsystems, the company that developed Java and was later acquired by Oracle.

This one will go on forever. We are expecting Oracle to take it to the Supreme Court.