Oracle is seeking damages “in the billions of dollars” from Google over the company’s use of Java in its Android operating system.
Oracle, which closed its buyout of Java developer Sun Microsystems in January 2010, sued Google last August, claiming the company’s Android platform violated its recently acquired patents on Java.
Documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California yesterday marked the first time the companies disclosed how much money was at stake.
The figures emerged as the two companies argued with the court over the reliability of Oracle’s damages claims.
Google called estimates from Oracle’s damages expert Iain Cockburn “unreliable” and in a “breathtakingly wide range” that is “orders of magnitude beyond any reasonable valuation of the intellectual property at issue.” The specific range cited by Cockburn was redacted from the record.
Oracle accused Google of trying to hide the extent of the damages and said it would not fight a decision to release the information to the public, saying the “damages claims in this case are in the billions of dollars.”
“Oracle does not object to making the summary information supposedly — though inaccurately and misleadingly — extracted from confidential/AEO documents public,” the company told the court.
Google has been ordered to file a “full, unredacted version” of the damages summary for the public record by today. The documents have not yet appeared in the court’s online record system.
Oracle’s lawsuit could help the company stop Google from fragmenting the Java technology used in the Android platform. Java is open source but is protected by licenses that govern how companies are allowed to use it.
Filed Under: Industry regulations + certifications
