Tech News

Oracle has won at least one legal battle this week. SAP is paying the hardware giant $306 million in damages following the copyright infringement suit. 

Unlike the fight against Google, it looks like victory over SAP really is a payday. SAP's bill to Oracle continues to get bigger as Oracle's general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement that SAP will have to pay "a minimum of $426 million, including attorneys’ fees."

Oracle originally filed the lawsuit in 2007 against SAP, arguing that SAP downloaded and copied intellectual property. The case didn't go to trial until 2010.

In 2011, SAP pled guilty to criminal charges in Federal Court for its illegal activity and paid a fine to U.S. Department of Justice.

Thursday's ruling also means that Oracle's unanimous 2010 jury verdict awarding it $1.3 billion can now be immediately taken to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. SAP also paid Oracle $120 million in attorneys' fees shortly after the trial began.

This is good news for Oracle -- especially after the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based corporation lost in a legal war with Hewlett-Packard at the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara on Wednesday.

In that case, it was ruled that Oracle did have a responsibility to continue to offer its products on HP’s Itanium-based server platforms until HP discontinued sales of Itanium-based servers.

Apple v. Samsung

Aand Samsung are expected to give closing arguments in their patent trial this week. Here's the info you need to follow along.

The trial that could reshape market for mobile phones is about to come to some kind of closure.

There's one more day of legal house cleaning before closing arguments begin in Apple v. Samsung, the patent dispute between two of the biggest players in smartphones.

What's at stake? If it wins, Apple wants $2.5 billion. Samsung is seeking $519 million from Apple. What this case is really about, though, is stopping Google and its Android operating system. Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder and CEO, said before dying last October that he wanted to destroy Android because he considered it a "wholesale" ripoff of the iPhone.

If Apple wins, the company's lawyers will first be able to force Samsung to stop shipping some of its handsets and computer tablets in the United States but more importantly, Apple will have a nice precedent with which to attack HTC and other companies that use Android. If Apple loses, then the decision will obviously work against Apple's larger anti-Android strategy.

What happens next? Apple and Samsung are still arguing over what instructions the judge will give to the jury about what they should consider before rendering a verdict. At more than a 100 pages long, the instructions will take more than an hour to read and are sure to put the jury into a coma, the judge has said.

How long will closing arguments last? Each side will get two hours and both parties insisted that their arguments be made on the same day as each other. Expect that to occur on Tuesday.

Who is on the jury? Nine men and two women.

Why doesn't Apple just sue Google?: One likely reason is that Android is free and Google doesn't profit directly from sharing the OS with phone makers. Samsung, on the other hand, chooses to use Android and is generating revenue upon which Apple can calculate damages.

Samsung also makes for an easier target. Apple can compare the iPhone with Samsung's handsets side by side.