Jury Says Android Does Not Infringe on Oracle Patents

The jury in the Google/Oracle patent-infringement lawsuit has returned its decision, and it's completely in Google's favor.

The jurors' decision was that Oracle did not prove "by a preponderance of the evidence" that Google's Android OS infringes on two of its patents. The decision would have had to be unanimous in Oracle's favor in order for the jury to decide there was infringment -- just one dissenting voice in the week of deliberations is all it would have taken to give the victory to Google.

Part of a Larger Whole

Last week, this same jury ruled that the design of Android violates Oracle's copyright on the structure, sequence, and organization of Java. However, the judge in the case still needs to decide whether that's something that can even be copyrighted.

This jury also decided last week that Android does infringe on Oracle's copyright of nine lines of code, which means Google could have to pay $150,000 in damages.

Moving forward, all the decisions made in this case are likely to face appeals, as there is a great deal of money potentially involved, especially if Oracle can get a judge in the future to reverse this jury's decisions.