The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_
infringed the SSO
Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer.
It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?
Same might be said about technical people when it comes to Google and Oracle.
*edit: clarity.
The Constitution in large part tries to lay out a minimum effective government, with as many checks and balances as possible to prevent that government tyrannizing the people.
Trial by jury was yet another check. If Congress and the President pass an unfair law, the courts are obliged to enforce it. But nobody can question a jury to know why they came to the decision that they did, and so juries are free to declare someone innocent if the law is bad. This is called jury nullification and is an honored part of the jury system. Surviving documents make it clear that this was the reason that the jury system wound up in the Constitution.
But the check has not worked as designed. In the 1800s employers sought, and got, anti-union laws. Juries refused to enforce them. The companies were clever, they sought and got laws requiring judges to misinform juries about their rights. You are only to decide on fact, you are not to decide on the law, etc. When they tried cases using unpopular laws and juries had received these instructions, the juries convicted people.
Those jury instructions have been modified over time, but still exist in some form. So much so that if someone states the honest truth it sounds radical. And that honest truth is that the jury system is supposed to a protection from bad government, and not a fairer way of determining the facts.
The jury is mostly there to weigh the credibility of the witnesses and experts. E.g. do we believe this Google witness when he says he didn't know about X? We do this for a very sensible reason, which is that it makes the legal system credible. It's very easy to lose faith in the judicial system because you don't trust judges, etc. It's easier to put your faith in a jury of your peers. And at the end of the day, as a dispute resolution mechanism that's what the judicial system depends on: faith that it will render fair judgments.
Just one data point, but I believe there are studies to back this up -- people have far more confidence in the jury system if they have been on a jury.
The whole experience left me with much less faith in the jury system.
Their (groklaw) quote is:
"Judge Alsup tells them they don't have to reach agreement on question 4. That's just advice for him, because he has to decide that in the end. No, they tell him they are at an impasse on one of the first three questions on the form."
Basically he's giving the jury a chance to render a narrower verdict rather than answer the broader SSO question outright.
"Has Oracle proven that Google has infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works?"
As far as I can tell nobody disputes that Google lifted the Java API's structure, sequence, and organization from Sun, and the judge told them to consider SSO copyrightable. Most programmers think it's ok to rip off an API because otherwise the world will burn, or something, but 1A is asking what Google did not whether it was illegal.
My bet is the jury is held up on the fair use, either for implementation (1B) or documentation (2B). These are vague questions that can easily go either way. My bet is that they find 1B for Google (implementing the API is ok) but find 2B for Oracle (reprinting the API SSO is not ok). You have to implement the API to make it compatible, but you don't have to republish the API.
There are 'fair use' provisions and most companies would grant carte blanche to people to provide new implementations. I am actually struggling to think of an example other than Java.
Fundamentally, the main reason to copyright something is to restrict others' use of it. Letting companies restrict their APIs' use would be unfortunate, so if it there is really no effect either way they should not be copyrightable.
It could get very ugly.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120416085550303#U...
The judge specifically asked if anyone had software design experience; the two people who raised their hands were excused.
He later asked, "there are geeky types of people and people who are not into technology. If you are on a geeky end, could you raise your hand?" Noone raised their hand.
I understand there could be a bias, but on the other hand these people are making interpretations of the law that could have very large consequences for a long time. Self described non-geeks are going to have very little knowledge and potentially little care of those consequences
The judge should have filtered for bias in other ways