Oracle after Google's billions

Oracle is looking to claim damages in the range of $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion in its patent spat with Google over the use of Java in the latter's Android smart phone operating system.

Oracle had filed patent infringement litigation against Google in November last year, where it stated that Google's Android mobile operating system infringed upon the Java patents that it had acquired with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

James Gosling, the creator of the Java programming language, moved over to Google earlier this year, having quite Oracle in April last year. At the time he spoke of incidents post the acquisition and had even blogged that it was evident from the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle that a patent spat between Oracle and Google was imminent. He had said as employees of Sun Microsystems, they were “grilled” about the patent situation between Sun and Google, and that he said he “could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle” at those meetings.

US District Judge William Alsup asked Google to place the documents in the public domain in response to Oracle's demand that the same should not be excluded from public view.