The US District Judge supervising a major lawsuit over smartphone patent infringement between Oracle and Google has concluded its probe into the firms’ relationships with paid bloggers and other observers.
In its ruling on 07 August 2012, US federal judge William Alsup has demanded names of ‘print or Internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers’ on the firms’ payrolls.
According to the judge, the payments might have subjected writings about the case, and the legal experts enquired the extent of the order, which include whether it could infringe the writers’ initial amendment free speech rights.
However, according to an order ruled on 05 September, following the submission of list of names of paid bloggers by Oracle and Google the judge said he would "take no further action regarding the subject of payments by the litigants to commentators and journalists."
The judge also revealed that the ruling was not influenced by commentaries had influenced in this case, other than "any treatise or article."
The judge has also ordered Oracle to pay Google $1m to cover court expenses associated to the case.
Oracle had prosecuted Google in 2010, alleging that the search engine firm’s Android mobile operating system had infringed its patents and violated its rights to the Java programming language.
Oracle claimed $1bn from Google for damages caused for its copyrighted patents, while Google won the case following the Federal Judge’s ruling in favour of the search engine giant.
