Google Asks For $4 Million In Legal Fees From Oracle

from the sliding-backwards dept

Having lost its patent/copyright case against Google in somewhat spectacular fashion, Oracle is now facing the possibility of having to also pay Google over $4 million in legal fees. Google has submitted its calculation of legal fees that it’s seeking from Oracle, and it totals up to $4,030,669. Of course, this case is heading for appeal, so this number may be meaningless. However, it does suggest that Oracle — which once seemed to believe this case might bring it billions of dollars — may quickly discover that it’s costing an awful lot instead…

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Companies: google, oracle

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Comments on “Google Asks For $4 Million In Legal Fees From Oracle”

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30 Comments
That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: 4 million

Argument fail. 4 million may be ‘a drop into the perverbial ocean’ for them money wise, but it’s still a good chunk of money they had to pay out for legal fees caused by a bogus lawsuit, so of course they’d want to get that money back.

Alternatively, they could be trying to set a precedent for there being an actual punishment for patent trolling, instead of the nothing(or if the judge is really mad, a sternly worded rebuke for bringing the case up) there is now.

Wally (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 4 million

Hence my “it’s a perverbial drop in an ocean of piss”, as it is quite unnecessary for google to ask of this. No matter how someone twists it, is it really necessary to ask someone to pay your legal fees after a jury based civil trial where you not only won in a sufficient way? It should be a fine to the plantif for a frivolous lawsuit if the plantif looses. That fine goes to the court in the form of legal fees. Since they both refused to settle, it went to jury and neither of then should get the others’ money.

Niall (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 4 million

Because it cost Google unnecessary money, so why should they pay it, ‘drop in the ocean’ or not? Because it might make a patent troll think twice before picking on someone smaller?

$4 million may not be a lot to Google, but it might still be the cost of supporting some small ‘free’ service that people use and enjoy.

Is the economy so strong that we can encourage people to ‘waste’ $4 million?

Duke (profile) says:

Only 4 million...

$4m for a first instance decision? And I thought legal costs in the UK were high. Come on, people, this is getting downright silly; whatever happened to justice being fair, blind, accessible and all those things?

Also, $2.9m of that is apparently “Fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case.” – That’s one expensive photocopier they’ve got there.

New Mexico Mark says:

Re: Irrational

The only way that might have a chance of working is if Google specifically chose to exclude certain legal expenses in order to bring the number down to an interesting one. Even then they’d be taking a chance on how a judge might interpret that action if discovered.

Usually judges and geek humor mix about as well as oil and water.

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