Skip to main content

Google wants millions of dollars in costs from Oracle lawsuit

Lawsuits, as we already all know, can be very expensive indeed. How expensive, you may be wondering? Well, let’s take a look at the recent Oracle vs. Google lawsuit for a good – if somewhat surreal – guide to such things. As you may remember, Oracle had sued Google for patent and copyright infringement concerning APIs related to Google’s Android OS; the lawsuit was eventually ruled in Google’s favor, with a judge even going so far as to announce that the API structures that Oracle was claiming ownership to couldn’t actually be copyrighted after all.

Cut to the present day, and Google taking advantage of the rules of Federal Court that allow for the “prevailing party” in lawsuits to recover legal costs for the entire thing, absent attorney’s fees (Those are occasionally recoverable, but normally only in cases where the other side has been proven to have engaged in some kind of legal misconduct, which clearly wasn’t the case here). In realistic terms, that means that Google is allowed to ask for costs relating to things like deposition of witnesses, the creation of and annotation of transcripts, document- and other information gathering, and other such necessary ingredients to the preparation of a lawsuit. Given that the legal battle between Google and Oracle lasted all of six weeks, what kind of amount would you estimate Google would ask for?

Recommended Videos

Those who said “Just over $4,000,000,” give yourself a pat on the back.

In papers filed yesterday, the search giant asked for $4,030,000 in costs from the trial. For the curious, that amount breaks down in the following manner:

  • $2.9 million for the processing and duplicating of documents
  • $987,000 to pay for the court-appointed damages expert (One half of the expert’s entire fee; Oracle pays the other half)
  • $143,000 for transcript costs

Everyone who finds themselves wondering whether that transcript cost seems high, here’re some further details that might help you figure that out: According to Google, sixty witnesses were deposed in preparation for the trial, with many deposed more than once. Making an assumption that there was somewhere in the region of 100 depositions carried out, that puts the cost per deposition at $1,430 – which almost seems somewhat reasonable, if you consider how long such depositions could range (That said, I am still giving serious though about getting into the transcript business).

The $2,900,000 in processing and duplicating of documents was further broken down by the company: “More than” 86 sources produced more than 97 million documents for the case, with an outside firm – FTI Inc. – retained to search through said documents for pertinent material, which were then transferred to TIFF format for use by Oracle. In total, Google shared more than 3.3 million documents, for a total in the region of 20 million pages.

Of course, that $4,030,000 figure doesn’t include lawyer fees, remember; those are estimated in the tens of millions. So, how much does a lawsuit cost, even if you win? The answer is clearly a lot of money.

Topics
Graeme McMillan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A transplant from the west coast of Scotland to the west coast of America, Graeme is a freelance writer with a taste for pop…
Google is paying a $700 million fine, and you’re getting some of it
Google Play Store on the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G.

If you think your Tuesday is off to a rough start, at least you aren't Google. In the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday, December 19, Google confirmed that it's paying $700 million as part of a settlement regarding antitrust concerns around the Google Play Store.

In July 2021, over 30 states (plus Washington, D.C.) filed a lawsuit against Google over its business practices related to the Google Play Store on Android. Specifically, the lawsuit targeted fees Google charges developers to use the Play Store — and the alleged lack of competition the Play Store allows. Google settled the lawsuit this past September, and now Google has announced the details of that settlement.
Google's paying you $630 million ... kind of

Read more
Google loses landmark antitrust lawsuit against Epic Games
Tinder on the GooglePlay App Store.

Google has lost a landmark case against Epic Games after a jury decided on Monday that the web giant operates an illegal monopoly via its Android app store.

The decision was announced at the end of a month-long trial that itself was part of a longer legal dispute between Google and Epic Games that’s been rumbling on since 2020.

Read more
How to save your data from Google’s purge of inactive accounts
The Google "G" logo on an Android phone.

Google is about to begin deleting inactive Google accounts, which could mean you’re about to lose photos, documents, and other data that you actually want to keep.

The good news is that there’s a way you can safely hold onto everything, but you’ll need to take action this week to be sure.

Read more