It looks like Oracle will be unable to bring the full force of their lawsuit against Google as a judge has ordered Oracle to pick which claims they want to file against the search giant.
“Oracle will surrender all of its present infringement claims against Google based on the 129 asserted claims that will not be tried,” the judge added. “Oracle may not renew those infringement claims in a subsequent action except as to new products.” (ZD Net)
The judge will only allow Oracle to pursue 3 claims, as well as 8 prior art disputes out of the hundreds Oracle submitted.
Although this doesn’t let Google entirely off the hook for allegedly copying Oracle, it does help limit the amount of damage they can do to Google’s mobile OS.
Obviously Oracle isn’t looking to kill off Android, but rather force manufacturers and Google to pay licensing fees (which Oracle would make a killing off of due to Android’s dominance in the smartphone wars).
Whether or not Oracle has a case against Google the courts will ultimately decide, although truthfully the longer this drags on the harder it will be for Oracle to collect any potential license fees (as companies in Asia could simply develop Android on their own with little fear of litigation).
Image Credit: MaximumPC
Originally posted on May 5, 2011 @ 1:25 pm