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Jury Sides With Google on Oracle's Patent Claims

Google Inc. took home a defense verdict on Wednesday in its smartphone fight with Oracle Corp. after a jury rejected all claims of patent infringement.

Google lead counsel Robert Van Nest and his rotating team of support from Keker & Van Nest and King & Spalding bested IP litigators from Morrison & Foerster and Boies, Schiller & Flexner, who were unable to secure any significant wins during the multiphase five-week trial.

Oracle, which once touted the whole case as worth $6 billion or more, could walk away with nothing but legal bills. "We are grateful for the jury's verdict," Van Nest said as he left court.

The patent-phase verdict further diminishes Oracle's chances of securing a significant damage award or the big prize of an injunction that would force Android to license Java.

Oracle filed suit in August 2011 claiming Google's Android mobile operating system infringed Java copyrights and patents, which Oracle gained rights to after acquiring Sun Microsystems Inc. in 2010.

The jury on May 7 said Google infringed the "structure, sequence and organization" of 37 API packages, or application programming interfaces. But Oracle can't cash in on that finding since the jury deadlocked on Google's affirmative defense that it only made "fair use" of Java technology.

To date, Oracle has only won on two relatively tiny copyright infringement claims, which could be subject to only statutory damages. Both sides agreed to release the jury from considering any copyright damages while the court considers key legal issues.

Google issued a short statement saying, "Today's jury verdict that Android does not infringe Oracle's patents was a victory not just for Google but the entire Android ecosystem."

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