It's not a contract, but there are other mechanism in the law to give effect to this intuition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Estoppel: This my be my new favorite word. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios for use (okay, I can imagine one) "You can try to renege on your promises, but I'll estop you, I'll estop you once & for all!"

This isn't a bait and switch based on legalities. If Oracle made representations to Google that they didn't mind them using their software, Google would be able to claim that Oracle is estopped from pursuing a claim due to the prior authorization they received.

What's being stated here is that Google's infringement improved Oracle's market position - that fact doesn't bar Oracle from pursuing their remedy against infringement. If you steal my software for making phones chirp every time you get a tweet and widely distribute it to the point that it becomes the de-facto standard in the tweet notification market, it doesn't magically mean that I don't get to come after you for stealing my tweet tech.

Here's the decision itself. Estopple is mentioned 0 times. This isn't because Google's legal team is braindead. It's because the argument that the Google's use was authorized following them walking away mid-licensing negotiation is insane. Google's defense is based on fair use. http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or...

I am not sure you are familiar with the entire case regarding Sun's public approval of Google's Java use. Oracle argued it was the CEO's personal blog, but the CEO definitely did give a form of "green light" depending upon your interpretation. It's a defense I feel like is easy to do against a large company that "should have known better", but would be considered unfair against a smaller company that was essentially given approval. I won't address the rest of your comment that is out of context since it's missing this important fact.

Here's some old HN discussion on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2806771

I'm familiar with the case. The comment isn't out of context; you (and other posters) need to recognize that IP rights are composite rights, like real estate.

In real estate, you can own a plot of land and provide others with permissions associated with the land; maybe they're allowed to walk over a path that runs through your land. That permission is not equivalent to all possible permissions associated with the land - although maybe some ancillary ones are implied in. Maybe people are allowed to bike over the path too, but they certainly aren't allowed to dump broken washing machines there.

Similarly, in IP I can grant you a set of rights related to my product without giving you ALL rights related to my product.

To use your own analogy it seems like we are only talking about one singular right. Making derivative work thereof. If not can you clarify your position?

They did make those representations, and Google did claim that.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/suns-jonathan-sc...

No, they didn't.

If I hand you a bag of balls and say you're allowed to play with the purple and green balls inside, I haven't given you permission to play with any of the other balls.

In this case, the different balls are the different dismemberments/rights related to Java.

Sun defended Java with the trademark and the compatibility kit, not copyright on the API. It never occurred to anyone (as it shouldn't now) that there was copyright on the API.

[edit] Jonathan Schwartz: "The strategy was, we agree on these open APIs, then we compete on implementations."

> If you steal my software

Nothing was stolen (i.e. Oracle still has the software), it was an infringement of copyright (and perhaps patents).