Oracle

SAN FRANCISCO -- Oracle Chief Financial Officer and President Safra Catz made an appearance on the stand at the U.S. District Court this morning, testifying for Oracle's rebuttal case in its intellectual-property trial against Google.

After Judge William Alsup asked at one point during the plaintiff's questioning why Catz was called, Oracle counsel Marc David Peters said that it was to prove that Oracle wasn't suing Google because it couldn't compete in the mobile market.

Despite an objection from Google counsel Christa Anderson, Judge Alsup overruled the motion, instructing the jury that the motives here … Read more

The Java SE 6 runtime that has shipped with past versions of OS X and which has been available on-demand for Lion users is the last version that Apple will officially support in OS X, but this does not mean Java for OS X is dead. Java's parent company Oracle has taken up the reins for Java development in OS X, and yesterday announced the first version of the upcoming Java SE 7 runtime for OS X.

This update is good news for Java developers, and for end users who run Java code on Mac systems, as it is … Read more

week in review A controversial Internet surveillance bill cleared its first hurdle to becoming law this week.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, rejecting increasingly vocal arguments from critics that it would do more to endanger Americans' privacy than aid cybersecurity. By a vote of 248 to 168, a bipartisan majority approved CISPA, which would permit Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency and other portions of the U.S. government.

While a proposed amendment that would have formally granted the NSA … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Following former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz's eager but sometimes tension-filled appearance on the stand this morning, Sun co-founder Scott McNealy appeared for testimony at the U.S. District Court.

See also: Former Sun CEO: We would have paid Google for Java phone Trial: Former Sun CEO gets into catty fight with Oracle lawyer

McNealy was actually called to the stand by Oracle, even though Google is still in the middle of presenting its case. Google counsel Robert Van Nest stressed to Judge William Alsup that he wanted the jury to know that Google was accommodating … Read more

Last Updated: 4:29 PM PT 

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz took the stand here today as a witness for the defense, and disputed Oracle's claim that Java APIs were proprietary code from Sun. 

Google's lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun.

"No," Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software. "These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people...we wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- In what might be one of the most anticipated appearances of the Oracle-Google trial thus far, former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz testified on behalf of Google at the U.S. District Court this morning.

See also: Google: Sun, Oracle couldn't bring Android competitors to market

Schwartz served as chief executive officer of Sun from 2006 until 2010. He is now the CEO of San Francisco-based startup CareZone.

Schwartz described eagerly that when Java was initially developed in the mid-1990s, it came about during a time when there was one company "dominating" computing: Microsoft.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Besides arguing that the Java APIs were free to implement on Android because they are necessary for using the Java language, Google is holding onto another strategy as well.

That would be arguing that Oracle is only suing Google now because it couldn't bring a smartphone platform of its own to market to compete with Android.

Specifically, Google counsel Daniel Purcell focused on the development of full stacks while rolling through witnesses this morning at the U.S. District Court, starting with former Sun Microsystems and Oracle exec Craig Gering.

Purcell sped through a definition of … Read more

As part of its suit against Google, Oracle accused the search giant of violating seven patents covering Java technology with its Android platform. Five of the patents were dropped from the case upon reexamination by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO). 

On April 22, patent No. 5,966,702 was validated by the USPTO and Oracle requested that it be allowed into the case against Google.

Full coverage: Oracle v. Google

Judge William Alsup informed the dueling parties on Wednesday evening that he rejected Oracle's request on the basis that "Oracle offered to dismiss … Read more

During the Oracle v. Google trial, the value of the Android platform to the Internet giant has been a subject of inquiry. When Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page was asked last week by Oracle's attorney David Boies about the value of Android, he responded that Android is "important, but not critical." 

On Wednesday, Google's head of the Android platform, Andy Rubin, was asked by Boies what purpose Android serves for Google, He responded that it "makes it easier to access Google services." 

Boies queried Rubin on whether … Read more