SAN FRANCISCO The verdict is in. But no one went home a clear winner.
The jury hearing Oracle Corp.’s smartphone suit against Google Inc. found for Oracle on a major question of copyright infringement Monday, saying Google had infringed “the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works.” But it deadlocked on a second crucial part of that question: whether Google made fair use of that Java technology in its hugely successful Android operating system. That prompted Google lead counsel Robert Van Nest to move for a mistrial on that infringement question, which is where Oracle had hoped to cash in on the eye-popping damage figures, at one point estimated at around $1 billion.
