Scalper1 News
Oracle ( ORCL ) stock slipped nearly 1% and Alphabet ( GOOGL ) stalled flat following a report that Oracle will seek as much as $9.3 billion in damages from Google Android’s use of Oracle’s iconic Java software. Oracle sued six years ago, before Google restructured into Alphabet, and is preparing for a second trial to start May 9 , according to an IDG News Service report. When it first went to trial in 2012, Android was said to be the world’s largest mobile operating system, with more than 300 million users. Today, it has more than 1.4 billion active accounts. In the first trial, the jury found that Google had used Oracle’s Java code for mobile Android but struggled over Google’s claim to limited “fair use” of Oracle’s code. “The core issue is whether the APIs (application programming interfaces) here are copyrightable, and that’s for the court to decide,” Jim Prosser, Google’s global communications manager at the time, told IBD in May 2012. “We expect to prevail on this issue and Oracle’s other claims.” Later that month, the jury ruled in favor of Google over the “fair use” question. An appellate court overruled the decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Google’s last appeal, essentially sending the case back to the trial court. Oracle presented the new damage total in court filings, according to IDG reports Monday, which also said that Google may have put a $100 million cap on some damages, according to an Oracle filing. Oracle fell 0.9% to 40.62 in the stock market today , 10% off a five-month June 16 high of 45.24 and 3% off a March 21 peak at 42. Google parent Alphabet closed down 0.2% to 753.28 Monday, just 7% off its Feb. 2 all-time record high of 810.35. Oracle and Google spokespeople could not immediately be reached for comment. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News