Oracle Sues Google Over Android

[Matthew Gillen]

On 8/15/2010 6:30 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
> Sun did release the Java EE (enterprise edition) under the GPL.  Look up "Project Glassfish".  And, in fact, that code is still currently available on Oracle's web site:
> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/community/index.html
> 
> None of which is immediately relevant to the Oracle v. Google suit.  This is a patent suit because Google didn't license Java Mobile Edition (Java ME) -- which was *not* released under an open source license -- from Sun.

The new piece of info I gleaned today was that Sun granted royalty-free
licenses to all its java-related patents for versions of Java that
complied /completely/ with the java standard.

Google's Dalvik, and Java ME on which it is based, is not a complete
implementation of the full java standard, so those royalty-free licenses
technically don't apply (regardless of whether the code for Java ME was
open-source or not).

Taken on the face of it, Oracle has a pretty strong case.  That assumes
the patents hold up though. It remains to be seen whether the patents
are strong enough to survive a challenge.

Matt