We were constantly bombarded by a FUD machine predicting Oracle's victory in the Google-Java-Android court battle. It seems the machine was living in a parallel universe detached from the reality.
In yet another setback for Oracle, the US Patent Office has rejected 17 of 21 claims associated with one of the patents in Java that Oracle asserted Google had violated with Android.
Groklaw reports, "In the reexamination of U.S. Patent 6192476 the USPTO has issued an office action in which it rejects 17 of the patent's 21 claims."
The site further writes, "While Oracle has asserted seven different patents in its claims against Google, if this reexamination is exemplary of what Oracle can expect in each of the other reexaminations, Oracle will have a hard time finding claims that it can successfully assert against Google, and there lies Oracles conundrum. Oracle either has to agree with the court's directive to limit the number of claims it will assert at trial, or it is likely the court will simply stay the trial until the reexaminations are complete."
Here is the list of claims [courtesy: Groklaw]
| Patent No. | Claims | Claims Not Subject to Reexam | Claims Subject to Reexam | Claims Rejected | Claims Surviving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RE38105 | 41 | 10 | 31 | 41 | |
| 5966702 | 23 | 14 | 9 | 9 | 14 |
| 6061520 | 23 | 3 | 20 | 23 | |
| 6125447 | 24 | 24 | 24 | ||
| 6192476 | 21 | 21 | 17 | 4 | |
| 6910205 | 14 | 9 | 5 | 14 | |
| 7426720 | 22 | 2 | 20 | 20 | 2 |
| Totals | 168 | 38 | 130 | 46 | 122 |
Swapnil Bhartiya
A free software fund-a-mental-ist and Charles Bukowski fan, Swapnil also writes fiction and tries to find cracks in a proprietary company's 'paper armours'. He is a big movie buff and prefers listening to music at such high volumes that he's gone partially deaf when it comes to identifying anything positive about proprietary companies. You can follow him on Twitter, Google+ & Facebook. You can write to him on editor at muktware dot com
