What a kerfuffle indeed. After weeks of trial and nearly a week of deliberation, the outcome of phase one of the Google-Oracle trial was that the jury agreed Google had violated Oracle copyright by duplicating word for word nine lines of code and mimicking Java's APIs, however a consensus could not be reached as to whether the use of the Java API constituted ''fair use', rendering the announcement of copyright infringement practically mute.
What's more, whilst the jury had been asked to deliberate under the assumption that APIs were indeed copyrightable, Judge William Alsup has yet to rule on this matter, leaving software engineers and programming houses all over the world waiting to see if the very core of their business may still change or not. There's a little confusion too, as to whether the jury felt that the use of the Java API constituted fair use because of Android's specific application in the market or due to the nature of APIs themselves.
Either way, for now at least, without a solid verdict, there's technically no evidence that Google has infringed copyright and so the firm's lawyers are calling for a mistrial, at the very least, Oracle may now only seek statutory damages of up to £100,000 in regards to copyright infringement, which had, we're informed, formed the the bulk of Oracle's £630 million damages claim.
The trial will now move onto phase two, where the matter of alleged patent infringement will be debated. It won't be until phase three that damages are to be discussed.
