Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
Summary: Although a trial date is still set for Halloween, a new court order is pointing towards a possible settlement between Oracle and Google.
As it gets closer to the scheduled Halloween trial date over Google and Oracle's patent infringement dispute, the case is heating up considerably.
Not only is the trial commencement time possibly up in the air, but a settlement between the two Silicon Valley giants could actually happen.
Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a brief order on Friday afternoon revealing that he might order the "top executive officers" of both companies to come to court for a day or two.
That means we could potentially see Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page get involved with some real courtroom drama action.
But before we get too excited, the judge's memo does leave the door open to other possibilities as well at this point.
Oracle v. Google: Order Regarding Mediation
FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller speculates that the top executives won't necessarily be the chief executive officers showing up to court in San Francisco this fall:
There's still a possibility that the parties' lawyers can convince Judge Alsup that one or two full days to be spent in court by top-level executives of both companies would be overly burdensome and unlikely to yield the desired result. They'll probably be quite creative now in arguing against such a compulsory high-level settlement negotiation, but neither party will want to appear too uncooperative. I would also expect them to argue that there's uncertainty about the trial date, but I guess Judge Alsup wouldn't be impressed by that argument since he wants the parties to make all preparations for a Halloween trial regardless of a possible postponement.
Whomever gets picked to go has to be specified to the court by Wednesday, September 7th. But if neither company wants to send top level executives to court, they might be more inclined to finally try to make a settlement happen -- at least once the trial start date is pinned down without any doubts about it. Neither party seems prepared for and/or wants a full trial, which was evident at a preliminary hearing back in July.
Related:
- Judge rejects Oracle's $1.3 billion award against SAP
- Oracle under fire over ethics again: Feds investigating bribery for business in Africa
- Java creator Gosling leaves Google for robotics startup
- Apple nabs 16 more patents for multi-touch, solar power, iWork
- Oracle has had a really bad week
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Google could had save $12.5B by licensing instead
The worst part, the purchase made it very clear that Android was making a lot of money for Google and probably turned the entire Oracle vs Google case in Oracle's favor.
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
"The worst part, the purchase made it very clear that Android was making a lot of money for Google"
Introducing facts not into evidence. Google was dumping Android to drive out competitors by infringing on their competitors intellectual property and using the monopoly in one industry (Ads) to afford the product dumping (of Android).
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
Monopoly in Ads? Haha, that made me laugh. You clearly have no idea how big the advertisement business is and how many services you regularly use are supported by Ads. You can start with anything that's free like most websites in the internet (including zdnet), TV etc.
Since you are a big MS/facebook fan, I might as well point out some of their ad supported service. Bing, Hotmail, WP7 (there's not way they'd invest that type of money in WP7 if they didn't expect to make Ad money from bing; why do you think it's shoved down your throat), Skydrive, and pretty much any other free service they offer.
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
They'll get 90% of the money back from tax savings + cash Motorola has on hand. They could probably get the rest back by selling their manufacturing division.
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
Google greed is beyond imagination... hang google till death on the city wall...
take it easy... just adding some drama...
thanks
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
Hate Florian Mueller all you want ..... but
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
You can't prove someone wrong when they tell you something might possibly happen. That however doesn't mean they are credible.
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
He's not worth quoting, and as you noted like almost all of the stuff that Enderle says - it actually says nothing at all.
The way these things work is that Microsoft PR wants a certain article published, so they shop it to a lazy editor who prints it whole. Presumably in return the "author" gets "access" to some inside information later that they wouldn't otherwise get.
The point of this one is to make Oracle's worthless claims appear to be worth settling.
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
[url=http://www.great-store.org/]Canada Goose[/url]
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
Google spending $12.5B for 18 patents turns the table
RE: Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court
When you reach and grab you get elbowed.