Google slams Oracle court code comparison

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Code produced by Oracle in court, in a bid to prove its copyright was infringed by Google, was edited, the search giant has alleged.

An ongoing court case between the two tech behemoths is trying to decide whether Google stole Oracle’s copyrighted Java code when creating Android.

Oracle had produced a comparison of Java code and the code used in Android, as it sought to prove similarities between the two.

Subsequently Google claimed the comparison was not accurate as Oracle “redacted or deleted... both expressive material and copyright headers that appear in the actual materials, which are significant elements and features of the files in question,” as Groklaw noted.

This is just one of Google’s defences, though. The search giant has alleged the patents issued by Oracle were in fact invalid as “one or more claims are directed to abstract ideas or other non-statutory subject matter.”

In other defences, Google claimed Android was “created independently and without reference to any works protected by the Asserted Copyrights,” and said Oracle had “not suffered any irreparable injury.”

The lawsuit is one of a host of cases between some of the tech big boys.

The biggest also involves Oracle in a case against SAP. The former's chief executive Larry Ellison was in court this week, claiming SAP's alleged theft of Oracle software cost his company $4 billion (£2.5 billion).

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