Google vs Oracle: Thermonuclear or Thoroughly Unclear?

November 15, 2010

Google and Oracle have problems. Unlike poor people, money, power, and respect are easily available. Google’s problem is that not too many people like Google in my opinion. I just filed one of my for fee columns and quoted a wit who pointed out that Google is embroiled in legal hassles on every continent except the Land of the Penguins, Antarctica. Google may be little more than a victim of anti Math Club behavior, but compared to 2006, Google is not going to become queen of the prom.

And Oracle? The company has a boatload of unhappy cruisers above the Oracle trireme. Even worse, the winds of open source are disrupting some lucrative trade routes. Oracle wants to make some dough on the Sun Microsystems’ intellectual property, slap a port charge on anyone who docks at the Java rich MySQL harbor, and generally get back to chasing IBM and Microsoft around. Android? A slacker compared to a real US Marine. Ooorah.

I urge you to read “Google Files Sizzling Answer to Oracle’s Amended Complaint and its Opposition to Motion to Dismiss – updated 2Xs.” I would be the first to say, “I am not sure I am following the fancy talk and lawyering in the write up. For me, I found this a useful paragraph:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Oracle’s patents ended up on the junk heap? Clearly that is Google’s intention. I’ve been hoping for a settlement of this mess from day one. I smell that it is now a real possibility. You can take this amended answer two ways — that it’s Google angling for a better settlement or that it’s Google looking to win the whole enchilada and free up Java for everyone. That last is why I think Oracle might consider settling. If it started all this because of drooling over money from big, rich Google — a common affliction, I’ve noticed — then realizing it might have to sue the Open Handset Alliance or one of its members or even some individual programmer out there somewhere, well, it’s not as appealing a thought. Litigation is about money, and if there’s no deep pockets worth suing, and no easy payday, and a big risk, then there you are. Is it worth risking the patents? The damage is already out there, though. The whole world knows that Google believes these patents Oracle is licensing to everybody are junk. Now that I think of it, that’d be a good reason for Oracle to go forward, if it has confidence in its position. But here’s the bottom line for those of us who don’t care about money: post-Bilski, it’s not so easy to run people over with software patents anymore. And that’s a good thing.

Here’s my take. The US economy is struggling. Two big, rich outfits want to make darn sure each gets bigger and richer. Right now, I am not convinced that either outfit is worth the time and energy. The big losers in this dust up will be difficult to predict, but there will be losers. The winners, on the other hand, are easy to identify. The lawyers will make out like the fine money collectors many are.

Moving on.

Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2010

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Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Google, Legal matters, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.