The two companies had fought a patent battle over the Java programming platform, concluding with a jury rejecting Oracle’s claim over two months ago. However, according to The Recorder newspaper, the case is not closed as Judge Alsup has ordered both companies to identify ‘all authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have reported or commented on any issues in this case and who have received money (other than normal subscription fees) from the party or its counsel during the pendency of this action’.

Sweeping denial

It is so far unclear what prompted that action, but the order could lead to a large number of legal writers becoming involved in the case. Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman, who has written about the trial on his blog -- which generates modest revenues via Google AdSense – said: ‘If the parties make the disclosures fully in compliance with the order, then we're going to have a ton of false positives.’ He added that the order ‘could lead to a witch hunt mentality’.
Meanwhile, Florian Mueller of blog site FOSS Patents – who has commented regularly on the Java patent case and counts Oracle as a consulting client – said: ‘The appeals court will have to decide whether a sweeping denial of ‘copyrightability’ is in line with statutory law and case law.’

Shadow army

San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien suggested there is a ‘vast shadow army of law firms, public relations specialists, trade organisations, pundits, think tanks and academics’ that dominate debate over Google, both for and against.
While intellectual property specialist lawyer Neil Smith -- of Silicon Valley firm Ropers Majeski Kohn & Bentley – said he would not be surprised to see similar actions taken by other judges, for example, in the Apple-Samsung trial overseen by US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose.
If such orders are used more frequently, James Chadwick, a partner at Los Angeles-based international law firm, suggests a case could be made against them as, without compelling need, constitutional rights would likely override a judge's curiosity about how litigants might be attempting to shape public opinion. But, Mr Chadwick added: ’If a court were concerned that it or the jury had actually relied upon some treatise or article that was nominally written by a third party but that was actually written by one of the parties, I could see how that might justify disclosure.’