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Comment by josefonseca | Hacker News Reader

The reason I ask is this(copied from my same question on reddit):

I see but does the fact that the judge told them to assume so indicate something about what he thinks about it?

I'm not a lawyer and I wonder how it goes in these cases: when a judge tells the jury to assume something, is he implying there is a good chance that that is how he would judge the case?

I had a lawsuit many years ago against a bank here in my hometown. The judge initially ruled he "believed the evidence I presented was consistent with my arguments". In the end, years later, that is how he judged it finally. Therefore I wonder if API's are all now on the brink because of this ruling.

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> I see but does the fact that the judge told them to assume so indicate something about what he thinks about it?

There are a couple reasons he may have done this - one is that the jury could have found for Google on fair use, rendering Alsup's decision on API copyright unnecessary. He gets to avoid making a potentially far reaching decision.

The second is if he rules against API copyright, and is overruled on appeal, then there doesn't need to be a second jury trial, since the jury already assumed API was copyrightable.

  P = Java APIs are copyrightable
  Q = Google has violated Oracle's copyright on Java APIs

  Does P imply Q?

In order to answer this question, you must first assume P to be true and then determine whether Q follows consequently.

This is purely a logical/philosophical exercise (that could nonetheless have serious consequences for the outcome of the case); the Judge had to give this instruction. If he told the Jury to assume the opposite, there would be nothing for them to determine (we already know that not P implies not Q).

> In order to answer this question, you must first assume P to be true and then determine whether Q follows consequently.

Yes but you must discard the hypothesis later(assumption of P), which only the judge can do in this case, deciding whether or not P is true.

Indeed, but that was not the question at hand: "when a judge tells the jury to assume something, is he implying there is a good chance that that is how he would judge the case?"

Exactly, that is why I asked.

I guess by your reasoning, then yes, he is implying that, otherwise the implication is always true and there's no logic to assuming a false P.

Thus: I fear for the worst. API's may be copyrightable according to this ruling. I assume Google's teams are all over this right this minute.

>>> I guess by your reasoning, then yes, he is implying that, otherwise the implication is always true and there's no logic to assuming a false P.

There are two separate questions being asked here:

  1. Is P true?
  2. If P is true, does Q follow?

The jury is assessing question (2) while the judge will later assess question (1). Question (2) is a question of guilt (if this were the law, did Google violate it?) and question (1) is a question of law (is this actually the law?).

To answer (2), the jury must assume P then evaluate the consequence on Q; that is simply the manner of establishing the validity of a material implication. As you note, if the jury did not assume P, then they would have nothing to do. However, that the judge instructed the jury as such does not indicate any bias on his part; he was simply providing instructions to simplify the procedure of logical reasoning to a group of 12 laypeople. I'm assuming that most of them aren't trained mathematicians, logicians, lawyers, or philosophers.

To put it succintly: the answer to your original question is "No."

No, he is not implying that.

  P = APICopyrightable
  Q = APICopied # infringingly

Trial is trying to evaluate "P and Q". Judge does not want to evaluate "P" (lazy evaluation?), so he rewrote expression to "Q and P" hoping to short-circuit.

They ask juries to rule on all matters of fact they can think of.

They do this to prevent new jury trials, letting appellate courts solve all matters of law.

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