ITWire

Google had asked for a shade over $US4 million in costs after the final verdict went in its favour, but Judge William Alsup trimmed this down in his order of September 4. This amount included $US2.9 million in e-discovery costs.

In his order, Justice Alsup said: "Oracle initially sought six billion dollars in damages and injunctive relief but recovered nothing after nearly two years of litigation and six weeks of trial.

"Oracle initially alleged infringement of seven patents and 132 claims but each claim ultimately was either dismissed with prejudice or found to be non-infringed by the jury.

"Oracle also lost on its primary copyright claim for Java APIs. While it is true that Oracle prevailed on two minor, peripheral copyright claims, this win has not materially altered the legal relationship among the parties. To sum up, the 'action has not materially altered [Google's] behavior in a way that directly benefits [Oracle]...' Therefore, Google is the prevailing party for purposes of taxing costs."

In the case, filed back in 2010, Oracle had accused Google of copying Java application programming interface (API) designs into the APIs of its Android mobile operating system; basing Android class libraries on Java API designs; and copying from Java code into Android code.

It had also alleged that Google had violated its patents - seven were originally cited, but five were overturned before the trial, and only two were being considered.

The trial began on April 16 and in the first phase, the jury concluded that while Google was guilty of copyright violation, it could not decide whether this was covered by the principle of fair use or not.

The second phase of the trial, dealing with patents, went decisively in favour of Google, with the jury concluding that Oracle's patents were in no way violated. In the final phase of the trial, Justice Alsup determined that APIs were not copyrightable.