Robert Pogson

Yesterday Judge Allsup overruled the jury on one item in their list of questions, “our court of appeals has held that it is the amount of copying as compared to plaintiff’s work that matters for the de minimis inquiry, not how the accused infringer used the copied work. Newton v. Diamond, 388 F.3d 1189, 1195 (9th Cir. 2004). Here, Google has admitted to copying the entire files. No reasonable jury could find that this copying was de minimis.”

Java is huge. Android is huge. How any jury could find such little copying was any more than de minimis is beyond me. Files are not at issue. The copyright in question is the entire body of Java SE, not a few files. Expect an appeal…

see The Ruling