Ah, but patents, wonderful things that they are, protect implementations more than they protect features. It's very easy to implement the same feature in diff

Ah, but patents, wonderful things that they are, protect implementations more than they protect features. It's very easy to implement the same feature in different ways, ones that are patent protected if you know how. Having said that, GPL in theory ensures users and even people making derivatives of Java are protected from patent action by Oracle.