Late last month, Google was ordered to pay Oracle 1 billion in damages over its infamous Java copyright lawsuit. This ruling has worried some of Android’s manufacturer partners, especially since some of them are already being forced to pay royalties to Microsoft for patent infringement. Margins for Android phones are already getting thinner and thinner, so having to shell out more money to another party would make that situation even worse for Android OEMs.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Android OEMs are going to have to start paying royalties to Oracle, especially since this Google/Oracle lawsuit was over copyrights, not patents. Typically, legal disputes between companies over copyright infringement are handled only between the two companies in the legal battle, so if that holds up, Google’s Android partners wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Google’s still on the hook for the legal damages, but that at least won’t upset the Android ecosystem very much. We’ll have to wait for this ruling to make its way through the inevitable rounds of appeals and overturned ruling before we can really see the effect this will have, though.
source: Business Korea
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