Oracle

It’s been nearly a decade and yet there is still no end in sight. No, it’s not the Samsung vs. Apple patent circus, which seems to have mostly died down. This one is between Google and Oracle and the final results could have widespread repercussions across the entire software industry. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just ruled that Google, in fact, violated Oracle’s copyrights when it used Java API in Android and could end up owing the Java owner more than $8.8 billion in damages.

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That popular idiom about "well-rounded" female operatic singers may have not been coined with the legal system in mind, but it's almost a perfect fit. In a system where appeals can be filed again and again, nothing is really over until funds run out. Just take the case between Oracle and Google that has been on-going for almost a decade. After losing it's case in a federal jury ruling, Oracle has taken the matter to the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit, insisting that Google's use of Java in Android is, in fact, illegal.

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There's some potentially bad news for a lot of Oracle customers surfacing today, as it seems the company has fallen victim to a data breach. According to KrebsOnSecurity, the breach affected Oracle's MICROS division, which provides point-of-sale systems and support for many businesses around the world. In fact, the number of locations using MICROS around the world comes in at more than 330,000, spread across 180 different countries.

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Oracle is looking to tackle the cloud market in a big way, announcing today that it will acquire NetSuite for a staggering $9.3 billion. That's enough money to firmly position this deal as one of the largest in Oracle's history, which is no stranger to multi-billion dollar buyouts. NetSuite has the distinction of being the first company to offer cloud-based computing, launching way back in 1998.

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It's been a long road getting here, but we may have finally found the end of the fabled lawsuit between Oracle and HP Enterprise over Intel's Itanium processor. The lawsuit was brought against Oracle by HP, which alleged that Oracle had broken a contract between the two companies when it ended database software support for Intel's line of processors, which HP used for its high-end servers at the time.

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Bad news for Oracle and Larry Ellison today, as a San Francisco jury ruled in favor of Google and dismissed a $9bn attempt to take a bite out of Android. The lengthy legal saga had seen Oracle contend that, in developing Android, Google should've paid for a license to the Java programming language; not so, Google countered, insisting that it was all done under fair use given copyright law.

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Six hours. That's how long, or, to be more blunt, short settlement talks between tech giants Google and Oracle lasted. Given that duration, the outcome should probably already be evident. The the companies failed to reach a settlement regarding an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit Oracle filed against Google for the use of its proprietary Java APIs in Android. As the settlement failed, the two will head back to court next month to perhaps once and for all give closure to both the actual question of infringement as well as damages to be paid. If any, that is.

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The squabble between Apple and Samsung over certain design patents may have hogged the spotlight time and again, but there is another lawsuit that is taking just as long and has just as grave a repercussion, at least for the Android world. For nearly six years now, Google and Oracle have been going back and forth over the copyright infringement lawsuit revolving around the use of Java APIs in Android. Ahead of a pretrial scheduled end of April, Oracle is seeking a whopping sum of $9.3 billion in damages for the profits that Google made from Android.

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The days of bloated, bug ridden, error prone web browser plugins are finally and truly numbered. Just last month, Adobe has practically started Flash's retirement from the web, pushing instead for a more standards-friendly HTML5. Now Oracle is doing the same, somewhat. Of course, it isn't dropping the ball on Java entirely but it is announcing the inevitable and probably demise of the Java web browser plugin. That said, what it recommends as a replacement is still a Java-based technology for launching full applications from a browser link.

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Google revenues and profits for their mobile operating system Android have been revealed In an ongoing Oracle vs Google court case over Java software licensing. The numbers come from documents which Google lawyers have argued should have remained private - an Oracle lawyer spoke the figures aloud in court this month. An analysis of Google financial information was disclosed on the 14th of January, 2016, and on the 20th, Google called for sections of the transcript of the hearing to be redacted.

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It seems that Google may have found a way to ditch a copyright lawsuit from Oracle surrounding its use of Java API. Either that or it's part of a secret settlement between the two. Whatever the underlying reason, Google has confirmed that starting Android N, the mobile platform will be removing its dependency on Oracle's proprietary Java in favor of the open source OpenJDK implementation. While Google's official reason is to root for open source software, the motive might have a tinge of legal maneuvering.

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The United States Supreme court rejected an appeal from Google after it lost a copyright infringement case against Oracle. The case originally dates back to 2010. It was then that Oracle Corp., the software company behind Java, alleged that Google's Android OS infringed on copyrighted Java APIs (application programming interfaces). In 2012, a district court found the case in favor of Google, but, in May of last year, the judge's ruling was overturned when an appeals court ruled in favor of Oracle. As the U.S. Supreme Court has backed off, this could be the ruling that stands, holding that API's can be copyrighted.

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