Tuesday, September 04, 2012

(BN) Oracle Must Pay Some of Google’s Expenses for Android Trial (1)


Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp. must reimburse Google Inc. about $1 million for expenses the search engine company incurred during a patent trial over its Android software, a judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco approved Google's request to recover its costs for experts because it was the winning party at the trial. He rejected reimbursement of almost $3 million from Oracle for electronic searches connected to the trial.

A jury found May 7 that Mountain View, California-based Google, owner of the world's most popular search engine, infringed Oracle's copyrights when it developed Android software for mobile devices yet deadlocked on whether the copying was "fair use." That blocked Oracle, the largest maker of database software, from being able to seek as much as $1 billion in damages from Google. The jury found May 23 that Google didn't infringe two Oracle patents.

Alsup also said in an order today that he wasn't influenced by any written commentary about the case in his trial rulings unless he cited a specific article in a decision. He had ordered Oracle and Google to disclose any financial ties to individuals who wrote about the trial, saying commentary that appears to be independent may influence courts.

He denied Google's request to set aside the jury's copyright verdict or order a new trial.

Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California-based Oracle, and Niki Fenwick, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment about Alsup's rulings.

The case is Oracle v. Google, 10-3561, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).


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