I always assumed Google had done their legal homework before building Dalvik. If they truly did a thoroughly clean implementation and if they truly examined all the patent issues they could foresee, then this case would prove that nobody, no company at all, no matter how diligent, can safely write software without fear of infringing patents. That won't help Google in court, but they could help make the case against software patents in the U.S. Congress. My dearest hope.