Oracle Sues Google Over Patent Infringement

Last Thursday, August 12, Oracle filed a lawsuit against Google for patent infringement. Oracle believes that Google knowingly infringed Oracle’s copyrights when developing the Android mobile devices. Oracle is suing Google in the Northern District Court of California over seven different patents.

Google’s Android violates several patents from Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2009. These patents are related to Java technology. They include protection against systems performing static initialization, protection domains and more which are listed below. A spokesperson at Oracle, Karen Tillman, released a statement regarding the suit on Thursday evening. Tillman said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.” Oracle also requested a jury trial, which could ultimately lead to an injunction on the infringing software and monetary damages for profits that Google made off of Android.

Google used Java applications running on a Java-based framework for Android but failed to sign a licensing agreement with Sun Microsystems. Google is choosing to defend its actions because it lived up to its open-source standards. Google released a statement on Friday to respond to the lawsuit. Google said, “We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.”

It is likely that this law suit could drag on and that the fight could get messy. Some are speculating that the real winner from this lawsuit will be Microsoft and its new Windows Phone 7 because it might have a chance to increase sales while the Android devices are under fire.

The seven patents in question are listed below.

1. 6,125,447: “Protection domains to provide security in a computer system.”
2. 6,192,476: “Controlling access to a resource.”
3. 5,966,702: Method and apparatus for pre-processing and packaging class files.”
4. 7,426,720: “System and method for dynamic preloading of classes through memory space cloning of a master runtime system process.”
5. RE38,104: “Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code.”
6. 6,910,205: “Interpreting functions utilizing a hybrid of virtual and native machine instructions.”
7. 6,061,520: “Method and system for performing static initialization.”

Tags: android, google, google android, lawsuit, Microsoft, Oracle, patent infringement, sun microsystems, windows phone 7