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Florian Müller

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Google discloses paid bloggers to judge in Oracle case, lists Stanford prof. Mark Lemley as ‘outside counsel’

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We told you earlier this month that a judge in the Google/Oracle case ordered the companies to disclose any payments it made to journalists, bloggers, and other members of media who made commentary or reported on the lawsuit. It was no secret at the time, but even paid blogger Florian Mueller of Foss Patents admitting previously that Oracle, in addition to other companies such as Microsoft, funded some of the posts on his blog.

Oracle later disclosed to the courts that Mueller was indeed a paid “consultant.” Today, we get an update on Google’s follow up to the judge’s request in a recent court filing (via The Verge).

While the majority of the people listed by Google include former interns, copyright lawyers, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Verge noted Mark Lemley, a Stanford professor who is often quoted by Google with no mention of the relationship, appears on the list as Google’s “outside counsel” for unrelated cases. Another name mentioned in the document is Google employee Tim Bray. The document cited tweets made by Bray from his personal Twitter account related to the case:


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Oracle on Android: ‘Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google’

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Software maker Oracle estimated that each day’s worth of Android activations makes Google approximately $10 million in annual revenue while also strengthening its Google+ service, German patent blogger Florian Mueller wrote on his FOSS Patents blog today. Oracle made this claim at a German court in regards to its patent infringement claims against the search giant:

While this case awaits trial, more than 700,000 Android-based devices are activated every day, all fundamentally built around the copyrighted Java APIs and the enhanced performance enabled by Oracle’s patents. Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google.

Oracle did not explain its math, however, leading Mueller to suspect that the figure is based “on the assumption of annual advertising revenues of $14 per Android user.” Interestingly, Oracle wrote in court documents “Analysts have predicted that the number of new Android devices will reach 2.5 million per day within twelve months.” However, it is not just about mobile advertising, the success of Android is benefiting Google’s other properties, namely its Google+ social network…


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British Telecom sues Google over six US patents

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British Telecom is suing Google over  six alleged infringements that affect its services in a plethora of areas, including Android Market, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Music, Google Places, Google Offers, Google Plus and location-based advertising.

According to Florian Mueller’s news blog Foss Patents, the lawsuit was reportedly filed in the U.S. district court for Delaware.

BT is seeking damages and an injunction, and its complaint indicates Google refuses to pay. The second sentence of paragraph 21 in the action states: “BT brings this action to recover the just compensation it is owed and to prevent Google from continuing to benefit from BT’s inventions without authorization.”

Google contacted the Wall Street Journal Dec. 19 and issued a statement regarding the recent patent infringement allegations.

“We believe these claims are groundless and we will vigorously defend ourselves against them,” said Google to WSJ.


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Patent wars: Motorola wins European sales injunction on Apple’s iOS devices

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Motorola Mobility this morning scored a major win in Germany as the Mannheim Regional Court ruled against Apple in one of the patent infringement lawsuit that the maker of the Razr phone filed against the Cupertino firm in April of this year. Interestingly, Motorola’s counsel Quinn Emanuel also beat Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Samsung products in the United States and is representing Motorola in another Apple lawsuit involving iCloud.

As part of the ruling, first reported by the FOSS Patents blog, Motorola won an injunction against infringing Apple products, meaning the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The court decision follows a default judgment against Apple last month, scheduled to be discussed again in early February.

The ruling involves the European Patent 1010336 (B1) – the European equivalent of the U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898 – which covers a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system” and was declared essential to the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) standard. This is the first “substantive ruling” as the injunction is “preliminarily enforceable” against Ireland-based Apple Sales International in exchange for a bond unless Apple wins a stay, FOSS Patents explains. How can Apple fight back?


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