No New Trial in Oracle v. Google Copyright Lawsuit, Judge Rules

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled against Oracle Tuesday in San Francisco, denying the company’s request for a new trial in its software copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. A jury found in favor of Google in May in a second trial of Oracle’s lawsuit, saying Google’s use of the coding and names contained in Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API) technology in its Android mobile operating system qualifies under the fair use doctrine (see 1605260067). Oracle claimed a new trial is warranted because Google concealed its 2015 ARC++ project to provide Chrome operating system users with Play Android Apps “without developer action.” Alsup disagreed with Oracle, saying Google produced multiple documents on the ARC++ project before the second trial. “Oracle’s failure to review the ARC++ documents is its own fault,” Alsup ruled (in Pacer). The ARC++ documents might not have affected the May jury verdict, Alsup said. “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,” he ruled. “That Oracle failed to detect the ARC++ documents in its possession had no consequence within the defined scope of our trial.” Oracle and Google didn’t comment.