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Bloomberg reports Google’s Android Infringed Oracle’s Java, Jury Says:

Google Inc. (GOOG), the largest Web-search provider, infringed copyrights for Oracle Corp. (ORCL)’s technology in developing Android software running on more than 300 million mobile devices, a federal jury said.

The 12-member panel in San Francisco, however, was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on whether Google had made “fair use” of Oracle’s intellectual property.

The decision prevents Oracle from seeking damages for all but nine lines of computer code on Android, out of 15 million total lines, that the jury found were copied from Oracle, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said today. Oracle is seeking $1 billion in damages.

I'm far from an IP lawyer or anything of the sort, but it appears as if this registers as an epic #FAIL for team Oracle!

“There has been zero finding of liability on copyright, the issue of fair use is still in play,” Alsup said after the verdict was read.

Google attorney Robert Van Nest asked Alsup to declare a mistrial, saying the issue of whether it’s liable for infringement is directly linked to the question of whether it was fair use. Alsup said he would consider Google’s request later. He ordered the patent phase of the case to begin.

The decision came in the copyright phase of an eight-week intellectual-property trial that began April 16 and next will shift to Oracle’s claims of patent infringement. A third phase, on damages, will follow the other two.

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Google still exhibits the likelihood that they will control mobile computing for the balance of the decade.

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