Tuesday, May 08, 2012: Here comes some judgement from the high stakes lawsuit between Oracle and Google. After days of deliberation, US jury stated that Google Inc infringed some Oracle Corps copyrights on the Java programming language. However, this news did not come as a sign of victory for Oracle since the jury is yet to decide if ‘Google’s actions constituted fair use and were legally allowed’.
If the judgement says that the use is fair, then Google would not be liable for any damage to Oracle’s copyrights. Edward Naughton, partner of Brown Rudnick LLP in Boston who is not involved in the case said, “There wouldn't be damages, at least on this part, if their (Google's) use was determined to be fair. If the fair use defense was upheld, they wouldn't be liable.” He further added, "That's why from a dollars and cents standpoint it's a pretty important argument. I think it's frustratingly inconclusive and we'll have to wait and see how it all comes to a conclusion.”

After the initial verdict was announcement, Google's lawyers challenged the key jury finding on Java copyrights and moved the court for a mistrial. The search giant says it does not violate Oracle's patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java, an "open-source," or publicly available, software language.

According to an online report, earlier in the case, estimates of potential damages against Google ran as high as $6.1 billion. But Google successfully narrowed Oracle's patent claims, so that the bulk of Google's exposure to damages now derives mostly from copyright claims. Oracle is seeking roughly $1 billion in copyright damages.