Oracle Lawyers Focus On Google Internal Emails

Oracle on 23 April focused legal efforts on its most compelling evidence – the internal emails of Google decison-makers – as the second week of court testimony began in its copyright and patent lawsuit against the search and web services giant.

Oracle is charging Google with stealing parts of its Java software suite to help build its highly successful Android mobile device operating system. Oracle is seeking about $1 billion (£620m) in damages and a possible injunction against Google using the software.

Licensing in question

Google contends that it used only freely available open source Java for its implementation, and that it did not require a licence from Oracle for that.

The central issue, however, is whether Java APIs (application programming interfaces) are part of the open source Java package. Since APIs are made up of software, specifications and techniques, and techniques are not copyritable, it remains for the court to sort this out for legal precedent.

Oracle claims in the lawsuit that the “specifications and implementations of the APIs are not a method of operation or system”.

Andy Rubin, who runs Google’s Android development team, took the witness stand on 23 April for questioning by Oracle’s lead counsel, David Boies.

Rubin acknowledged that in 2005 Google originally wanted to form a partnership with Sun Microsystems that would have given it the green light to use all parts of the Java platform for its upcoming mobile device opeating system.

“We were in discussion with Sun for quite some time,” Rubin said. “Partnership was my main objective.”

Larry Page testimony

But that never happened, and when Oracle acquired Sun in January 2010 for $7.4 billion, the change in ownership ended up not making a difference.

On Day 3 of the trial on 18 April, Google chief executive Larry Page testified that he believed his company was using only freely available open source Java source code and tools to help his team get Android finished and out to device makers in the company’s quest to compete with Apple’s iOS.

“I’m not sure whether or not we got a licence to anything,” Page told presiding Judge William Alsup and the 12-person jury. “We only used elements of the Java programming language that are freely available in the public domain. When we weren’t able to reach terms on a partnership [with Oracle], we went down our own path.”

On 16 April, Day 1 of the trial, Oracle attorney Michael Jacobs showed the jury a group of Google emails from 2005 to help state the case. In that year, several months before Sun released Java to the open-source community in November 2006, Google Android team manager Andy Rubin sent an email to Google co-founder Larry Page proposing to buy a licence for Java and its APIs.

“We’ll have to pay Sun for the licence,” Rubin said in the email.

‘Conscious decision’ not to take a licence

But an email two years later from Rubin to then-chief executive Eric Schmidt shows that Google “consciously decided against taking a licence”, Jacobs said.

“I’m done with Sun (tail between my legs, you were right),” Rubin wrote to Schmidt. “They [Sun] won’t be happy when we release our stuff.”

On 23 April, Boies told the court that the emails make it clear that Google knew all along that it needed a licence from Oracle in order to use Java and its APIs to put the connectivity into Android.

In one email that Boies showed the court, Rubin wrote that the Java.lang API (application programming interface) was covered by a copyright. He jousted with Boies a bit in the subsequent questioning.

“You meant copyrighted by Sun, right?” Boies asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Rubin said. “But you meant Sun, yes?” Boies asked.

“Yes, in the context of this I think that I meant the APIs were copyrighted,” Rubin responded.

“By Sun?” Boies asked. “Yes,” replied Rubin.

Boies or a member of his Oracle team will continue questioning Rubin on 24 April, when Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is also scheduled to testify.

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