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Android/Google in patent trouble/Pr trouble
jungleroomx
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
It all started with this blog post:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html
David Drummond posted about the plight of Android after a consortium of companies bought up the defunct Nortel's 6,000-some patents (It should be noted that Google was well in that bidding war as well, and has recently purchased 1,000 patents from IBM), patents that were supposed to help with the fact that Oracle is now taking them to task over what is reputed to be stolen Java code from Apache.
Many people seem to be responding negatively towards Google for being outbid during the auction, as they seem to be coming across as whiny and even crybabies. One such blog post that seems to be making the rounds is the directly titled "Google Are Pussies".
http://brianshall.com/content/google-are-pussies
If basic Android functionality is found to have been in violation of major US patents (And the latest court ruling from the Oracle/Google debacle seems to think 10% of the patents presented are, in fact, being violated), we come to the point where OEM's are going to have to pay to use Android. HTC already does, and pays Microsoft royalties on each Android made. And this is probably just the beginning... Apple is already in litigation against HTC for IP infringement due to their Android offerings.
This brings up a few relevant points:
1. The point that the open-source Android is now under attack by the courts. I tend to disagree with this one as Google has admitted to using patented Java code in their OS knowingly, and in this email from Google VP of Mobile Andy Rubin even said they'd risk going to court over it. Stealing licensed code is not open-source; it's piracy. I don't see how Android is open-source at all, and seems to be marketed with the same tactics as Internet Explorer was when it was sent to crush Netscape.
http://www.lifeofandroid.com/news_detail/google-may-have-simply-been-brazen-in-oracle-patent-infringement-case/
2. In the 4.5b Nortel deal between Microsoft, Apple, RIM, EMC Corp, Sony, and Ericsson... was it a major play towards shutting down Android? Was it a play to keep viable technological patents out of the hands of patent troll litigation companies? Google was invited to another consortium to purchase Novell's patents some time ago and refused the offer, so the consortium (lead by Apple) may have just left them out this time just because? What do you think?
3. Google has a very, very small amount of patents. Some claim it's because they prefer to perform a scorched earth policy on competing companies (Skyhook, Groupon) and steal their ideas, others because Google is an advertising company and not a software company. Either way, their relatively small size makes it difficult for the to "play the patent game" like the big boys they're going against.
The question mostly boils down to this:
Is Google now taking over the awful role of the 1990's Microsoft? Are they at fault? And, finally, should Android be licensed since it uses code that requires a license (and if it does, will it's sales start to flatline)?
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html
David Drummond posted about the plight of Android after a consortium of companies bought up the defunct Nortel's 6,000-some patents (It should be noted that Google was well in that bidding war as well, and has recently purchased 1,000 patents from IBM), patents that were supposed to help with the fact that Oracle is now taking them to task over what is reputed to be stolen Java code from Apache.
Many people seem to be responding negatively towards Google for being outbid during the auction, as they seem to be coming across as whiny and even crybabies. One such blog post that seems to be making the rounds is the directly titled "Google Are Pussies".
http://brianshall.com/content/google-are-pussies
If basic Android functionality is found to have been in violation of major US patents (And the latest court ruling from the Oracle/Google debacle seems to think 10% of the patents presented are, in fact, being violated), we come to the point where OEM's are going to have to pay to use Android. HTC already does, and pays Microsoft royalties on each Android made. And this is probably just the beginning... Apple is already in litigation against HTC for IP infringement due to their Android offerings.
This brings up a few relevant points:
1. The point that the open-source Android is now under attack by the courts. I tend to disagree with this one as Google has admitted to using patented Java code in their OS knowingly, and in this email from Google VP of Mobile Andy Rubin even said they'd risk going to court over it. Stealing licensed code is not open-source; it's piracy. I don't see how Android is open-source at all, and seems to be marketed with the same tactics as Internet Explorer was when it was sent to crush Netscape.
http://www.lifeofandroid.com/news_detail/google-may-have-simply-been-brazen-in-oracle-patent-infringement-case/
2. In the 4.5b Nortel deal between Microsoft, Apple, RIM, EMC Corp, Sony, and Ericsson... was it a major play towards shutting down Android? Was it a play to keep viable technological patents out of the hands of patent troll litigation companies? Google was invited to another consortium to purchase Novell's patents some time ago and refused the offer, so the consortium (lead by Apple) may have just left them out this time just because? What do you think?
3. Google has a very, very small amount of patents. Some claim it's because they prefer to perform a scorched earth policy on competing companies (Skyhook, Groupon) and steal their ideas, others because Google is an advertising company and not a software company. Either way, their relatively small size makes it difficult for the to "play the patent game" like the big boys they're going against.
The question mostly boils down to this:
Is Google now taking over the awful role of the 1990's Microsoft? Are they at fault? And, finally, should Android be licensed since it uses code that requires a license (and if it does, will it's sales start to flatline)?
jungleroomx on
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That's... definitely an opinion.
I don't usually call obtrusive and invasive information gathering "putting the consumer first", but po-tay-toh poh-tah-toh.
That has nothing to do with the patent issue, stealing Java code, and complaining in a public forum about "bogus" patents they were bidding on.
In these cases I usually make my decisions based on the key factor of
"Who has been exploiting their power to be a silly goose towards me lately?"
And the answer is "Apple, Apple, oh for the love of god stop being such a goose Apple!"
My opinion of most of these 'touchscreen and interface' patents is that if you're going to blatantly rip off the interface designs we've seen over decades in scifi and implement solutions which are no better than common sense options and then patent them you don't deserve to have your patents respected.
You may be surprised to find that patent law doesn't work this way.
You can patent some really basic, "common sense" stuff... and no matter how much someone thinks that's stupid, it's still a patent.
In general, I dislike any patent that is "bought" wholesale. Because it's typically not to protect the innovation, and usually just to fuck with the market. Actual things you innovated and people just copied? Pretty legit claims.
I see some stuff about stolen Java code from apache, but another article naming the files, and they were all test software released by Java (which never executed on the phones, it's not in the deployment branch, it's in the dev/test branch), and a zip file that wasn't ever meant to be released? What exactly is the suit about?
The email didn't seem to say "fuck it, we'll steal their shit", it seemed to just say "if they want to fuck us on the license, we'll just use C#"
IIRC, a patent can be challenged and thrown out if it's either overly broad or a common sense extension to something. Plenty of shit gets accepted as a patent, but just due to volume it doesn't get instantly challenged.
edit: this would mean that a method for designing say, multi touch would be novel, but being able to change the wallpaper would be bullshit.
I think the problem with this is that it is rather like discussing the correct verdict of a criminal case involving marijuana because you feel it should not be illegal in the first place.
Of course I also *agree* with your philosophy, as I have a problem with the way patent law has been used and abused to rather ridiculous points, but then I think M:tG patented tapping cards in the 90s so it's been going on for quite a while.
And the Java code that was used was released, as far as I know. Google tried to take someone elses work and use it to make profit... And got called on it. I think they deserve everything they're getting right now, from stifling competition to complaining about patents (and keeping that search algorithm secret) to letting the OEM manufacturers take the brunt of the litigation while they rake in the data and dollars.
This is not a good business practice, neither is software dumping and IP theft.
And Microsoft and Apple have been among the worst practitioners of offensive patent-litigation in the tech sector.
If Android and Apple's mobile interface are "practically identical", we might as well give up on anyone else being able to develop a new UI.
Where do you see the bolded? Someone went through the git repo for the code in question, and it was 7 files in the test suite (never deployed, and publicly handed out by Sun to everyone, the complaint was that for whatever reason they got the code from Apache, and somewhere in the translation Apache's license/ownership comments got put at the top), and a mess of files in an audio library that never got deployed (same issue, wrong attribution) Neither bit was licensed code being misused, they were just misattributed to Apache, not Sun.
As for keeping their search algo secret: that's the POINT of a patent. They did something novel, and should profit from it if they wish.
As for the UI: you can make an argument, but I'd also argue that the iphone UI is not all that different from what desktop computers have done for a while, so the only novel thing would be "... ON A CEL PHONE!" with regards to the grid, and adding a touchpad.
I find "...(thing we've done for years)... ON THE INTERNET!" to be a non-novel and trollish patent as well.
The notification bar and widgets alone are enough to significantly differentiate the stock Android and iOS interfaces. Now if you're talking about Samsung's TouchWiz skin (which even the staunchest fanboys admit was "inspired" by iOS), then you have a better argument.
That's a big deal, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement in Android -- which isn't a hard case to prove when you've got 37 Android source files marked "PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL" and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" by Oracle / Sun and at least six more files in Froyo and Gingerbread that appear to have been decompiled from Java 2 Standard Edition and redistributed under the Apache open source license without permission. In simple terms? Google copied Oracle's Java code, pasted in a new license, and shipped it.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/21/oops-android-contains-directly-copied-java-code-strengthening/
Yeah. Stealing proprietary information not for distribution is... shady as fuck, and probably illegal.
So much for code not being misused by the benevolent Google.
This is the most minor of the claims, the rest are all software process claims, which are usually pretty much outright bullshit. "Even if you think up a new way to do this, FUCK YOU THINKING ABOUT IT IS ILLEGAL", which is actually their accusation. Google claims to have clean roomed a JVM, Oracle is suing that even if you do that, you can't do anything even remotely similar. Software Process patents are relatively recent, and I cannot recall any of them being used in a way other than to essentially blackmail other companies.
IP law is supposed to protect innovation, but we instead turned it into a way to extort money out of people by having excessively broad patents on everything.
The last link in your link is an updated "oops":
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/21/android-source-code-java-and-copyright-infringement-whats-go/
Which links to:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/01/new-alleged-evidence-of-android-infringement-isnt-a-smoking-gun.ars
Which points out that the code in question is not production code, it's test suites. Oracle's accusation is that you can't use the official Java Test Kit with Harmony.
Don't worry.
Congress critters are going to stimulate job creation by speeding up that patent application process. With the current process, something like 30% of patents are really invalid due to covering things that already exist or being ridiculously broad, and speeding up the process will cut down on time spent researching existing patents, but I'm sure congress will take such worries into careful consideration before they pass this bill.
Not quite for you.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/oracle-and-google-keep-wrangling-over.html
TL;DR: A 2010 letter from Google's Lindholm basically says that the company needs to hammer out a licensing deal with Java, and when combined with the 2005 letter stating Google's willingness to use Java (licensed or not) shows a direct knowledge of willful infringement.
Google's lawyers have, of course, clawed back the letter and are trying like hell to make sure it doesn't come up again. They claimed it was "attorney client privilege", but other sources indicate it was an email to the CEO, which would invalidate that claim.
Essentially, if the Lindholm letter is found to be admissable then there will be more than enough to show they willingly infringed Sun's patents to save a few bucks, and from my perspective it was so they could undercut the competition and get involved with software dumping, just like Microsoft did with IE back in the day.
That's a real nice way of dancing around the point you got there. The point being that Google did nothing conventionally illegal here and that this entire suit is bullshit extortion at its finest. Now to better understand that, let's explain the patent system!
Imagine your kitchen is patentable, and instead of money patents are paid for in blood. I own the patent to the fork, you own the patent to the spoon, and someone else owns the patent for the knife. If any one of us wants to eat dinner together all three of us have to collaborate and agree to not to murder each other with our silverware. Now let's suppose that we start dividing up the patents to other items, I get the oven, you get the blender, person C claims the microwave. If you want to cook your food you now must ask for permission from myself and/or from person C. It doesn't matter if you cook your dinner on your oven, my oven, or the oven at Best Buy, you have to pay to use it. As well, if you try to invent a new way to cook then Person C and I will form a trust holding both of our patents and then proceed to take turns repeatedly skullfucking you as the statutory damage award for infringing our joint portfolio covering the de-facto concept of pre-heating food before eating it.
Now if you're lucky, you'll own patents to enough things I want to use, and me to enough things you want to use, that we arrive at a Mexican Standoff style situation. When this turns ugly is in the case, like with Google, where they just haven't been buying up enough patents. In this case Google is like you, who has the spoon and the Blender. I don't blend things, and I can use a fork in place of a spoon where it counts for my meals. So I don't need your appliances and being the good corporate citizen I am I decide that if you want to use any of the appliances I own you must sign a contract with me stipulating you can either rip one fully grown toenail from your foot with rusty pliers in my presence and present it to me as a gift each month for the rest of your life, or you can go the whole hog and lop off both of your feet with a hacksaw and present them to me as a one-time fee.
What was that, you just wanted to have some dinner? Well, revenge is a dish best served COLD after all! ;p
Google has a patent for displaying different logos on a website for different days.
Yeah.
Immaterial patents are a quagmire of bullshit nowadays. It's impossible to start a new company that makes, say, cellphones today, because you'd need to license a billion patents from the big players, no matter how simple you make your phone.
Apple deserved to patent the hell out of the iPhone's interface / mobile multitouch system / smart keyboard. There was nothing like it at all when the phone launched, and they should financially benefit from licensing the ideas to other phone developers.
I think that companies should not be allowed to buy patents they have no intention of using, or exist outside of their industry. That doesn't fix big guys like Microsoft and apple buying up a bunch of tech patents, but it does put the troll industry out of business.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
What it doesn't show is where a company knowingly uses code that requires licensing, which is what the courts are discussing now. And the two letters from Google show, pretty plainly, it wasn't an accidental breach of patent law.
This was a willing maneuver from a multi-billion dollar company that has access to enough patent lawyers where this wasn't a simple misstep. Google is just as big of a company as Microsoft or Apple, from a revenue or influence point of view, but they decided to enter a field that requires more than simple cloud apps and a search engine. They did so without the proper ammunition or weapons, just about zero R&D, and all of that despite having vast enough resources to accomplish that goal.
Microsoft and Apple get sued all the time for things they do, and patents they infringe on. Usually it's a "Oops, our bad" situation, and then they quickly settle the dispute. The very core of their operating systems, however, has not come under fire in recent memory. Android has been allegedly built, from the ground up, with stolen ideas, shortcuts, and knowing patent infringement, shoveled into a market under the guise of "open source", and been used to undercut other companies who actually took the time to develop their own software and innovate their own patents (Something Google has been woefully unable to do for over a decade now).
I think I might be a little less irritated at the tone of the discussion here if people weren't flying the Google flag like they're some besainted organization, far above the petty opposition-crushing and patent breaking of the others, and then deflecting all other accusations by showing how jacked up the patent system is (which, for the record, I agree with, but that's hardly the point here).
The evidence seems pretty damning that Google cut corners and expects patent law to favor their few innovations, all the while leaving all other patents open for them to use, freely and without question. These companies that Google is undercutting and using code from are not small ones like Skyhook, they're large megacorps who have gigantic war chests and experience with playing in the big leagues, and I'm thinking the ol' fellas at Google bit of a bit more than they could chew.
And maybe Xeroc Parc should be able to sue Apple for back-damages for stealing the GUI from them while we're at it! After all, if Apple can patent the iPhone UI then there's no reason Xerox shouldn't own the patent to a GUI. Patents make sense when they cover something incredibly elaborate and specific that copyright cannot protect, like the design of the engine to the Space Shuttle. They make sense because the idea is the inventor has to cough up the "How" in advance and through the patent office make it publicly available. Then everyone else agrees in return not to commercialize from that for another twenty years.
See, by patenting that idea I gained something as an inventor, limited monopoly on my idea to make sweet cash, and the public gained something, the design to an awesome shuttle engine. Software patents however, are the equivalent of me patenting the WORD "shuttle" and then insisting that NASA, as well as every Hotel in existence operating a "Shuttle" service, start paying me mad monies or I close them all down. Software is built around a rapidly changing, constantly evolving ecosystem of interwoven tools, techniques and code that often borrows from one another quite liberally. Software is unique though in that software code is copyrightable, so you can prevent someone from copy/pasting your magnum opus and using it to build something you don't approve of. Software Patents however cover the entire idea behind writing that code, which is basically like me taking my incredibly elaborate, annotated 500 pages of design, lighting it a fire, and handing the patent office a white piece of paper with the words "Shuttle Engine" printed on it over and over again in tiny typeface. Now I not only own the rights to my design, but nobody else can build an engine for any space shuttle, ever, for twenty years, without paying me and if you don't like it, well you should've been first to file!
Snark aside, I don't think 20 year patents work in the face-paced world of software development. Make it 2 or 3 years.
I'm sorry, but the shit that Oracle is trying to pull needs to die. They can't have it both ways - either Java is an open standard, or it's not.
You, sir, are a silly goose.
To answer the question, No. I am free to use any search engine I choose from my browser of choice. I can sign-up for any e-mail service I choose: msn, yahoo, all of these, I'm not forced to use google's webservices.
Phone manufacturers can chose to use Win Phone 7 over Android without any penalties (Yeah, Microsoft put the hurt on OEMs that wanted to package other operating systems of the time). That is to say, they're free to choose, and most often do, both and produce phones that fit all styles - which ultimately gives me more choice when I go to purchase a phone.
Google doesn't actively code to exclude other competitors of products from their offerings (Remember the rumored mantra, "Windows ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!"). You can install chrome right now, if you choose, and it will pop up a window on the first run giving you a choice of the three biggest search engines to use as the default.
This American Life from three weeks ago.
So you want to eat that there chicken dinner there? Be a real shame if someone got Salmonella. Nope, it doesn't matter if you get it from Applebees (Oracle) or the local soup kitchen (Apache Harmony), everyone's gotta pay for the right to use a controlled flame.
Or maybe, just Maybe, they decided that their long term goals were as such that it'd be better to eat the legal fees now and fight to change the legal system so such stupid "rights" never exist to begin with. Google may not be the best person in the world but their business model hinges almost entirely on the open source model of software development. Whether or not they're a good overall actor its within their best interests to have a free software ecosystem. If anything I'd guess that's the reason behind the decision.
In this case whether it's me, you or Google bringing the case up it matters not. The entire reason the case exists is the clusterfuck of Intellectual Property law as it stands today. A system that was even explicitly given purpose in the U.S. constitution as to "Further the progress of the arts and sciences." A purpose which it does not appear to fulfill at all these days and software patents are just one big sore on this bad apple.
*Cough*
The very core of their operating system? Linux? Didn't SCO try this line before...
But no, seriously. You do realize that Oracle is basically saying it is illegal for you to use Apache Harmony if they don't like you? It doesn't matter that hundreds of people in no way affiliated with Oracle all wrote that software on their own time and contributed it to the greater good. The fact that Google is the defendant here is a Red herring thrown in to distract that the entire case is bullshit to begin with. Yes what's being done is by all accounts legal but in my obviously outspoken opinion it does not make sense to any rational mind. The only kind of person who actually thinks all of these archaic legal wranglings are helping progress science are the same sorts of people who think that Tax cuts magically create revenue and lower unemployment FOR EVER AND EVER.
Google's only defense in this case is going to be to claim that all software patents are BS, which is what I'm sure hoping for. I don't claim they're a saint but I do know that its in their monied best interests to promote open source and open formats. A knight in shining armor they may not be, but they're working for us today so I definitely support them in this. The fact that there's evidence that they willfully infringed even moreso. Because it forces them to stick up for the rest of us for once, and maybe, just maybe, we the little guys will get a win out of it. That's a plus in my book.
Back to the original topic, you should go and read the article I linked. Here are some relevant bits:
Aside from the fact that nothing has been proven the code in question may have been from GPL'd parts of Java and, more importantly, the code wasn't added by Google.
No, they don't. Innovation is built off iteration as much if not more so then it is built off completely new shit.
One part is a mess of patent claims about software methods. Basically, Google says they clean room reverse engineered a JVM. Oracle is saying they own patents on the idea of a JVM (essentially, there are 10 or so claims, and they're all really basic shit about using a virtual runtime to execute code. Amazing way back from before Java, since they're all from acquisitions that lead to the development of the JVM. Kind of run of the mill these days), so clean room or no, fuck you. These claims are making waves in the OS community because the essential accusation is that you cannot play with the JVM unless you pay Oracle for the privilege(IBM has apparently done this with their JVM). Which would completely fuck Harmony. Side note: most of this is directed at Harmony, it's just that Google has money, Harmony doesn't.
The other part is the copyright issue with the 40 or so source files. The tech sites have done a pretty solid debunking on the idea that they stole the code for use: they're not deployment code, they're test harness code. So uh, there's an issue with the attribution being correct, but a technical court would hopefully laugh the idea of an injunction or royalties for a test harness having the wrong attribution in your version control system. Especially if you can prove the issue came from upstream, and you had no reason to doubt it was correct.
So basically, the case isn't "Google stole Oracle's code", it's "Google reverse engineered the JVM, and Oracle really wants that to be illegal"
Software patents don't incite Innovation because they do not offer any meaningful public gain for what they provide. The entire basis of Intellectual Property law is that an idea is an irrational concept which in its natural state is entirely resistant to the concept of ownership. The point of patents are you decide to show me your cool new design and in return I promise only you get to make money off of it for a time. Just like if you want to read my novel you have to give me a copyright so I can sell it for a bit. The point being its a compromise between the public and artists/scientists. The public gives up its natural right to do whatever it wants, which is how things normally are, and in return creative artists and scientists share their super duper art and science with the rest of us, which should result in a big win for society.
If they don't want to then they can even be stingy and call it a "Trade secret" but then that just leaves you one whistle blower away from losing your ability to make money. Since it's not illegal to use someone's trade secrets, it's just illegal if you're an insider and reveal them to someone else. In the case of software patents, since software code is already copyrightable you need to make a pretty strong case that the software patent itself grants something on TOP of what the copyright already grants.
But because all software patents cover is basically the "reason" unique or novel code exists, the "what" but not the "how" behind software, by their very nature they add no value in their disclosure. Because you can figure out "What" software does, by, you guessed it, USING IT!
Google doesn't have control of android.kernel.got.org?
Because once you've copied and shipped an unathorized copy, you're liable for infringement. Google shipped off Android code via the website up top, and last I checked was the only company who does so.
Or is responsibility of your distributed product now something else Google doesn't have to abide by?
We have to follow some rules to make it work fairly. First one to file gets the patent, for instance. This does not mean that the guy who tried to patent the wheel is on some sort of categorical moral high-ground. IP law is beyond being abused, and is in absurd territory these days.
Sort of. I mean, Apple bought FingerWorks, a leading designer of multi-touch interfaces (and the original guys behind the lower case i- thing Apple does). Apple then trademarked the term "multi-touch" and hamfisted a patent of sorts on multi-touch. But multi-touch displays were developed and researched and written about for like 20 years prior to all that. Heck, capacitive touchscreens date back to the 60s. Capacitive multi-touch interfaces were in use at Bell and Univ. Toronto by the mid 80s. The pinching stuff that rounds out the modern interface was developed in '91 at Xerox. Oh no, surprise, Apple's entire business model is built on ripping off stuff Xerox invented. They invented the window GUI for PCs and the mouse, too, if you didn't know.
I think a major problem is that we've lost sight of one of the original key factors in patents - you have to present a detailed design, and the design itself needs to be a big factor in the innovative unique nature. This has been perverted, to where people just draw flowcharts that connect two existing technologies with a meaningless straight line, and get a patent. Then 20 years later when someone figures out an actual way to integrate those two technologies into something useful and marketable, along comes the patent holder and his lawyer to sue. As fallout2 is saying, now you can get patents on something by mostly just describing what it does, rather than explaining your innovative idea on how it's done. People come up with ideas on something a device might do some day, patent it, and then wait for someone else to figure out how to do it, and then sue them. Actually, they'll usually wait until not only has it been figured out, but also after it's been built into a huge successful corporation and market presence through the efforts of thousands of employees, engineers, and entrepreneurs, and then show up with their lawyer, claiming that the big evil coporation stole from them. It's sickening. The real-world shit going on like this would make your head spin. When it's not that, it's the kind of stuff we're seeing here... big companies in a firecely competetive battle for market share will buy up patents as chess-pieces in a game where they abuse the government and patent system in order to gain advantage. They don't care about actually proving an idea was stolen, they just want to force a company to reveal confidential designs, or force them to stop selling for a few days while the case is pending. If a company can successfuly force that on a competitor during the the trial, they've already won, whether they win the case or not. Anyway, the patents on multi-touch bascially involve a bunch of shit other people invented before, except now smaller or perhaps on a phone.
Though Touchwiz is a bit of a rip-off. A rip-off that doesn't approach the level of the PC GUI rip-off that Jobs pulled on Xerox back in the day.
It does in the very same way the President has control over what laws congress sends to his desk. In short, some but it's not absolute, and it's not the eye of Sauron watching every commit for traces of IP infringement. Plus, didn't we just establish this as "test harness" code? Define "ship" in your eyes. You have some really funny ideas about Android, and about how software works.
Android is a positively massive project that makes use of code contributions from hundreds of external contributors. I'm sure someone better skilled with git could look over the repo to give a more accurate lowdown. But when people not skilled in legalese help Google's development out there's a chance they added some code that may or may not have had any place being there. If that WERE to be the case, then it'd just be a matter of finding/removing/updating that specific code. That's more of an "oops, my bad!" style error.