Google wins patent phase of Android lawsuit

Image credits: Sarai | Fotography

On May 23rd the jury in the closely-watched Oracle v. Google case returned a verdict for the patent phase of the trial in Google's favor. The jury unanimously found that Oracle failed to meet its burden of proving direct patent infringement by Google through Android and the Android SDK.

By the time of the trial, the set of patent claims asserted by Oracle had been reduced to claims 11, 27, 29, and 39-41 of U.S. Patent No. RE38,104, "Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code" (the "'104 patent"); and claims 1 and 20 of U.S. Patent No. 6,061,520, "Method and system for performing static initialization" (the "'520 patent"). Both patents were held by Sun Microsystems and originated in patent applications filed in the 1990s. Validity of the patent claims was not at issue in the trial.

The key element in dispute in the '104 patent was the term "symbolic reference" as used in the asserted claims. Oracle argued that the Dalvik VM source file Resolve.c infringed claims 11 and 39-41, and that the Dalvik dexopt tool infringed claims 27 and 29. The court had construed "symbolic reference" to mean "a reference that identifies data by a name other than the numeric memory location of the data, and that is resolved dynamically rather than statically." Google argued that there was no infringement because Dalvik bytecode instructions did not contain "symbolic references" under this definition. Moreover, Google argued that the dexopt tool did not infringe because when dexopt resolves references outside of instructions, it does so statically rather than dynamically.

As for the '520 patent, which concerned static initialization of arrays, the main controversy was over the term "simulating execution". Oracle argued that the Dalvik dx tool used simulated execution of bytecode for purposes of static initialization of arrays. Google argued that there was no infringement because static initialization of arrays was determined through pattern matching and without manipulation of a stack.

Entry of this verdict is subject to appeal, which means the outcome is far from final. Even so, the verdict is no doubt satisfying for Google and disappointing for Oracle. The verdict doesn't change the outlook for continuing patent threats to software development. The more interesting issue of copyrightability of the "structure, sequence and organization" of Java SE APIs has yet to be decided by the court.