One of America’s leading companies from the 2000’s seems to be garnering a lot of media attention lately. Hopefully they don’t bite off more than they can chew [a la Netflix.]  The following article details the latest ongoing in a patent squabble the company is engrossed in.

“Google’s lawyers fending off Oracle’s Java-related patent infringement claims found themselves in Judge William Alsup’s crosshairs on Tuesday.

Alsup took after Google’s team, led by Keker & Van Nest, for breaking its own agreed-upon rules aimed at streamlining patent-marking issues at trial. Alsup even threatened to take away one of Google’s key defenses — the argument that Oracle didn’t mark, or provide notification of, some of the patents in the suit, a position aimed at limiting exposure for past damages.

Google has claimed it wasn’t liable for damages on five of six patents at issue prior to the summer of 2010, when the suit was filed, saying Oracle was practicing the patents ­— in essence, using them in its products — but had not marked its products.

Alsup didn’t want to deal with that at trial and let the parties come up with an agreement that called for Oracle, and then Google, to produce detailed information on which Oracle products they contend do or do not practice the asserted claims and why .

Alsup said it was “manifestly clear” that Google blew the Jan. 20 deadline to produce that information. Google, Alsup wrote, “merely objected to Oracle’s testimonial evidence and complained that it did not have time to analyze the source-code citations provided.” Google didn’t analyze and address each product listed by Oracle or identify any other products that practiced the asserted claims.

“Google is herby ordered to stand and deliver on its end of the bargain,” Alsup wrote. He gave the team, headed by Robert Van Nest and including lawyers from King & Spalding and Greenberg Traurig, just two weeks to comply.

The judge appeared highly skeptical that Google has a legitimate reason for failing to produce the agreed-upon information. Even if there is evidence that Oracle didn’t produce codes and information needed for Google to comply, as Google contends, Alsup said it “cannot justify the wholesale refusal to respond at all as required by the stipulation.”

For its part, Oracle says its lawyers and engineers spent more than 100 hours complying with the agreed-upon procedure. “For each of the six patents at issue, Oracle identified the specific products, and versions of products, that practice the patents, provided citations to source code files, identified fact witnesses who could provide supporting testimony, and summarized their expected areas of testimony,” a Friday filing by Marc Peters of Morrison & Foerster said. “But now Google has reversed course completely and has refused to engage substantively in the issue-narrowing process it proposed. Instead of responding with a statement identifying which Oracle products it contends do, or do not, practice the patents, Google served Oracle with a litany of objections.”

The much anticipated trial has been delayed until at least April to allow for Oracle to come up with yet another damages estimate. Oracle has struggled to submit a damages theory that satisfies Alsup, who has said the plaintiffs were overreaching with a theory that put damages in excess of $6 billion.

The trial will proceed in three phases, beginning with copyright claims. The second phase will be on patent liability. The last phase, if there is an infringement finding, would address damages. Alsup estimates the trial will take two months.”

For original article go to: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202540913039

For more information about your legal issues, contact Hansen, Wright, Eddy and Haws today.

Located In Pleasant Grove, Utah and Now located in Nephi, Utah.