Google violated Java copyright

A jury on Monday declared Google guilty of infringing on Oracle Corp.'s Java software copyrights but had reason to believe it was not improper to do so. Jurors were unable to agree on a key secondary point of whether Google's use of copyrighted Java software was "fair use" that made it acceptable. The jury nixed any potential for an Oracle windfall in a damages phase by being unable to decide on the "fair use" issue and by agreeing that Sun Microsystems, which created the programming language, and Oracle, which acquired Sun, gave Google the impression it didn't need to license the copyrighted code. "There has been zero finding of liability on any copyright so far," US District Court Judge William Alsup told the rival attorneys after the jury left his San Francisco courtroom. "The affirmative defense of fair use is still in play." Oracle accused Google of infringing on Java computer programming language patents and copyrights Oracle obtained when it bought Java inventor Sun Microsystems in a $7.4 billion deal in 2009. Google has denied the claims and said it believes mobile phone makers and other users of its open-source Android operating system are entitled to use the Java technology in dispute.