Google vs Oracle Java suit jury currently deadlocked

01602updated 10:35 pm EDT, Thu May 3, 2012 20 hours of deliberation, no decision

After 20 hours of deliberations spread over four days, the jury responsible for the Google versus Oracle Java court battle has so far failed to reach a decision. A question posed to Judge William Alsup posed more questions as to the timely resolution of the trial -- a note passed to the judge by the jury asked what would happen if they couldn't reach a unanimous decision.Oracle is hoping to be handed a victory over Google which it has accused of not purchasing a required licensing agreement to keep using copyrighted segments of the Java code base in Android. Google argues that its actions fall under "Fair Use" portions of US copyright law.

If the jury fails to reach a unanimous verdict on the copyright infringement charges, the judge informed them during a pep talk at the end of the day that the trial would move on to a second phase regardless. A continued deadlock would result in a mistrial, and a retrial at a future date.

The first phase of the trial ended on April 27, when both Oracle and Google wrapped up their copyright arguments. During the trial, Google's "Chief Java Architect" admitted to likely copying nine lines of Oracle's Java code for Android, but defended himself by saying inadvertently reusing an algorithm he designed nearly a decade prior was good engineering practice.

By Electronista Staff

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