It looks like nothing could stop that Android momentum, right? Well, how about a big fat lawsuit from a tech giant? Oracle is suing Google over patent infringements related to Java in the Android platform.
“In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property,” Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman said in a statement.
Oracle, a titan of the enterprise software industry, spent $5.6 billion to acquire Sun, which had a number of intellectual property patents regarding Java. The Java language is used in a variety of computing devices, including Android and its apps. Much of the Android environment is essentially just Java with a few different layers, some say.
Some of Java has been released as an open-sourced license since 2006, but Oracle is saying Google took its uses too far. CNET looked at the complaint itself and it said, “”Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices that operate Android infringe one or more claims of each of United States Patents Nos. 6,125,447; 6,192,476; 5,966,702; 7,426,720; RE38,104; 6,910,205; and 6,061,520.”
Google has not publicly responded to the allegations of patent infringement.
I can’t say I know the merits of the case yet, but you can be sure we’ll dig into it. Many of these cases can take up to a decade to resolve and wind up with a cross-licensing deal anyways. One thing is for sure: the lawyers will get rich.
As the mobile space becomes more important to how we compute on a daily basis, mobile patent lawsuits are exploding as every company is trying to carve out its share of IP. Apple, Research In Motion, Nokia, Microsoft and nearly any company of importance in the mobile space is in some form of a legal process over patents.
[Via MarketWatch, CNET, read the full complaint here, Photo]
