Google Copied Java Code, but May Not Have Infringed Jury Finds in Oracle Case

The Oracle vs. Google trial has reached a critical state, the jury decided on the copyright infringement matter. The jury did find that Google copied some code from Oracle and the design of the APIs, however, it could not decide whether the copying was "fair use" or not. As such, even though the jury found Google guilty, there can be no talk of damages until the remaining issues are fixed.

The judge now has to decide how to proceed, but Google has already called for a mistrial. In the meantime, with the portion of the trial covering copyright issues over, the trial moved to the patent infringement portion. After this is done, the judge gets to decide on damages awarded to Oracle, if any.

The jury had a week to deliberate on the matter, but could not reach an agreement even after an extension was provided over the weekend.

Google copied Java API design, but it may be fair use and APIs may not be copyrightable

In the first question posed to the jury, they had to decide whether Android infringed on Java APIs. The jury believed so.

However, they could not agree on whether Google's copying was fair use, leaving the matter undecided. If it was fair use, there can be no infringement to speak of.

Of course, the matter of whether APIs can be copyrighted or not hasn't been decided on, the judge instructed the jury to proceed as if they can be copyrighted.

So even if they had not deemed the copying fair use, it may not have mattered if the judge decided APIs aren't copyrightable.

Answering the second question, out of four, the jury determined that Google did not copy the documentation for the Java APIs.

Google only copied nine lines of code

The jury was also asked whether Google copied actual code in three instances, the rangeCheck method in two files, some code in eight other files or the comments in a couple of other files.

Of those, the jury decided that only the rangeCheck method was copied, the rest was not. That's just nine lines of code, in millions, so Google will only have to pay statutory damages at worse. These damages are in the range of $100,000, often less, clearly not the $1 billion Oracle asked for and far less than what they paid their lawyers.

In the end, it seems that the first portion of the trial didn't yield much, given that the things the jury has decided on are subject to matters which are still undecided. For now, the trial is moving forward with the next phase.