Google has failed to meet the requirement of a court order to disclose the paid bloggers and other commentators on a patent lawsuit between the company and Oracle, according to a US Judge.
US District Judge Wailliam Alsup has set 24th August to provide with a modified list of public commentators to write on the lawsuit between Google and Oracle who were the recipients of payments as consultants, contractors, vendors or employees.
During early August, the Judge had issued an order that Google and Oracle reveal the names of all the writers who have posted their comments on the companies’ intellectual property lawsuit and who have received money from the Web firms.
As a response to the order, Oracle had revealed its payment to consulting relationship with a prominent blogger covering the trial, Florian Mueller of FOSSPatents.
The other party Google accepted contributions to various groups while saying that it has not paid any of them to comment on issues in the lawsuit.
"The August 7 order was not limited to authors ‘paid … to report or comment’ or to ‘quid pro quo’ situations. Rather, the order was designed to bring to light authors whose statements about the issues in the case might have been influenced by the receipt of moneyfrom Google or Oracle," Alsup said.
The case was brought by Oracle not long after it acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, and with it the Java programming language. Oracle claimed Google’s Android mobile operating system infringes on a number of its patents.
In May Google was cleared of most of the charges but was found guilty of copying nine lines of code. Shortly after that decision Oracle said it would accept $0 in damages in order to move to the appeal process.
