Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck told Breitbart News in an interview on Wednesday that Google committed a “bank robbery” by allegedly stealing 11,000 lines of Oracle’s JAVA API code to develop its Android operating system.
The Supreme Court will reportedly hear oral arguments for Oracle v. Google in March. Oracle has contended that Google stole thousands of lines of copyrighted code and diminished Oracle’s chances of competing in the smartphone marketplace. Oracle hopes to preserve an appellate court ruling that found that Google had infringed on Oracle’s copyrighted Java application program interface (API) material to build Google’s Android smartphone operating system.
Glueck contended that the Supreme Court case amounts to protecting established property rights — in this case, its copyrighted JAVA code. He said that Google has tried to undermine intellectual property (IP) protection through a “post hoc justification” of its stealing Oracle code for the company’s benefit.
He added that America has benefitted from innovation through its rigorous IP protection system, which unlike Europe and China, has much weaker IP protections and, therefore, much less innovation.
Internet Accountability Project (IAP) senior fellow Rachel Bovard told Breitbart News in an interview in February that the Oracle case serves as a “poster child” for Google’s anticompetitive practices.
Oracle had initially tried to license Oracle’s JAVA API but then relented after Oracle’s compatibility requirements conflicted with what the search giant wanted to do with Android.
Google then decided to copy JAVA’s code even if it meant “making enemies along the way.”
Glueck told Breitbart News that Oracle’s ten-year-long battle with Google underscores how difficult it is for other companies to compete against Google’s allegedly anticompetitive behavior.
He asked rhetorically, “Who other than another large company could fight someone like Google for ten years with all the legal costs and time involved?”
The Oracle executive vice president cited that Google allegedly stole speaker company Sonos’s smart speaker technology to make its own Google-branded speaker system.
Lyrics media website Genius also accused Google of stealing its content.
In another case, Google attempted to purchase Yelp in 2009. However, Yelp would not sell, and instead, Google scraped Yelp’s data and put them directly on Google. Yelp complained to Google and the FTC, but Google said the only recourse was to remove themselves from Google’s search engine.
Luther Lowe, vice president of public policy at Yelp, said, “We still exist, but Google did everything it could to ensure that we’d never present a threat to them. It’s bullying, but they’re the 800-pound gorilla.”
Glueck remarked that Google moved on from its famous slogan, “Don’t be evil,” a long time ago.
The Oracle executive vice president countered the narrative that Silicon Valley companies had backed Google in the Supreme Court case.
Glueck said that very few top technology companies and tech startups have backed Google and filed a brief in support of the search giant at the Supreme Court.
“Where’s Facebook, where’s Amazon, where’s Intel, where’s Sysco, where’s the who’s who from Silicon Valley? They’re not there either,” Glueck said.
Glueck said that many big tech companies are “all silent” on the Supreme Court case.
He suggested that many tech companies know that Google stole Oracle’s code and that this case does not have a larger impact on America’s tech industry.
“Tech knows that this is a fact-specific bank robbery,” Glueck said.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.