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Oracle Files Motion to Strike Google's Answer, Some Counterclaims

By Pamela Jones et al.

When I first started to read the title of the motion, I thought with joy that Oracle was dismissing its complaint. But of course, no. That's in my perfect alternate universe, where Oracle comes to its senses and the parties work it all out, in the FOSS community way.

Instead, it is asking the court to dismiss parts of Google's Answer -- some of its counterclaims, particularly the ones claiming that Oracle's patents are invalid -- some of Google's affirmative defenses -- which Oracle calls improbable and too vaguely pleaded -- and believe it or not it would like to censor some of the factual background material in Google's Answer. It says paragraphs 7 through 22 of Google's Answer are merely "a long list of self-congratulatory remarks and polemics that have nothing to do with Google's counterclaims for non-infringement and invalidity." Oracle says they are immaterial and impertinent. It is to laugh, as they say. Silly stuff already, and we're just clearing the runway.

Actually, it's worse than silly. It's asking to remove all the materials about how beneficial open source is compared to closed. Polemics? Shame on you, Oracle. You used to know better, as shown in the very material information that you now would like removed from Google's filing -- the part about how Oracle, then on the Executive Committee of the JCP, used to vote in favor of open sourcing the Java platform. After buying Java, Google wrote, Oracle reversed course overnight. That's not immaterial. If the court removes all those paragraphs, it would also remove the part in paragraph 17 that tells the court that Google doesn't receive any payment, fee, or royalty for Android. That matters very much in any litigation.

So while Oracle says it's all immaterial and impertinent, I don't think that is why it wants it out. It would like to knee-cap Google by removing the parts that would help Google defend itself from Oracle's patent aggression.

Full post as published by Groklaw on October 27, 2010 (boomark / email).