The Google Legal Juggernaut

Google Loves Its Lawyers

I think we all saw this one coming: Oracle is starting a round of lawsuits to “protect” the intellectual property it bought during the Sun acquisition. The first victim, at least for Java IP, is Google. (Another good article on the Oracle lawsuit is here.)

The specifics of the case are that Oracle has issues with Google’s use of Java in the Android mobile phone.

Google of course is going to fight this, for a number of reasons:

* Google has put a lot of money into Java and the Android.
* Google has a vested interest in seeing Java succeed.
* Google tends to fight lawsuits on principle.

Let’s pick up on the fights lawsuits on principle meme.

Google is no stranger to the justice system, having been party to many lawsuits. And, in most cases, Google has either come out on top or, at worst, come out unscathed.

Let’s take a few examples:

* Blake Field v. Google. Filed 2004. Field claimed Google’s “cache feature made it possible for users to access copies of his copyrighted material.” (This simply set the stage for later Google projects.) Google wins.
* ServersCheck BVBA v. Google. Filed 2006. ServersCheck sued because Google’s search engine offered links to software cracks for ServersCheck software. Google wins.
* SearchKing v. Google. Filed 2002. SearchKing sued when its PageRank was lowered. Google wins.
* Jeffrey Toback v. Google. Filed 2006. Toback sued because Google offered links to child pornography. Google wins.

There are a few losses, but, again, these are few and far in between.

An obvious question is whether Google is truly making great calls all the time or whether it just fields really good lawyers.

History seems to show its both.

Most of us would agree that the lawsuits listed above really are bogus. As a search engine, should we really expect Google to filter out links to software cracks or pr0n?

This is particularly true for a firm that has not only a national but international presence. How much control should a local lawmaker (e.g., Jeffrey Toback) have over Google in terms of search results? (But doesn’t China do the same thing?)

Sidestepping whether these cases have merit, it’s also proven that Google has done an insanely good job of finding good legal counsel.

Making this point may seem unnecessary, but let’s also consider that a good legal team in concert with a good PR team can often lead to us, the consumer, taking the side of a corporate giant in legal cases where Google may just not be in the right.

For now, Google seems to normally be in the right in the decisions that it makes. (At least from  my perspective.)

But how long is that going to last?

And how long will it take us to see past the good legal responses and awesome PR that is Google?

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