I believe at least six, but we will know soon. We will see how many of Oracle's seven originally asserted patents will go on trial. With only three patent claims allowed, Oracle could at most assert three different patents. Whatever the ultimate arrangement will be, the key metric in my opinion is not how many patent claims (one patent can consist, and in the field of software usually does consist, of multiple claims) are asserted but how many different patents are asserted. The fact that he now summons the parties to such a meeting suggests that the original proposal was a bargaining position but the judge is likely prepared to move up considerably from that number. ![]() If the judge believed his original proposal of three claims was the right number, he could simply have ordered it against Oracle's objections. The judge probably hopes that he can convince the parties in person to accept a compromise. So the judge wants to have a private conversation in order to seal a deal on how many claims and how many defenses will go on trial. to discuss alternatives and case management. The Court invites one attorney and one corporate representative per side to meet in chambers on MAY 11 at 7:00 A.M. While it's understandable that he tries to manage the case efficiently and to force the parties to streamline the case before it is put before the jury, there's a lot at stake in economic terms and the judge should not order a narrowing that would be arbitrary and could be successfully appealed. He previously complained about his resource constraints in connection with claim construction. This is, as the sentence quoted above from the judge's case management order shows, still too much in the judge's view. Oracle's counterproposal, which in my opinion is much more likely to be consistent with the Katz decision than the judge's tentative order, was to arrive at three asserted claims for each of the seven patents. Oracle argues that only two of the seven asserted patents are somewhat related (which is also the impression I got when I read the patents), and even those are in Oracle's opinion distinct inventions. Google, however, a narrowing down to only three patent claims would throw out a lot more than just the duplicative claims. In the Katz case the reasoning was that duplicative claims could be thrown out without depriving the patent holder of justice. Oracle, as I explained in my previous post, reminded the judge of the Katz decision, a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the court to which the present case could also be appealed), which basically says that a court may request such a narrowing of claims but only if a patent holder is not deprived of justice. In his tentative order the judge had proposed that Oracle reduce the number of asserted patent claims from 132 to 3 (in three steps). ![]() The recent submissions reveal unrealistic expectations about the judicial resources and time that can be devoted to this case. ![]() I'll quote the order now and comment on it sentence by sentence: The judge had only issued a tentative order and asked the parties to comment on it by noon on Friday, which they did.įurther to the parties' Friday filings, the judge has finalized the claim construction order (both parties accepted it in principle) and has ordered a case management conference in his office for Wednesday morning at 7:00 AM. In my previous blog post I explained that certain reports of Oracle having been "ordered" to drop 129 of its 132 patent infringement claims against Google were wrong.
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