Google vowes to "strongly defend" open-source standards and protect its Android operating system from Oracle's patent infringement lawsuit against the search engine.
Google Aug. 13 called Oracle's patent infringement lawsuit against the
search engine "baseless" and vowed to "strongly defend"
open-source standards and protect its Android operating system.
"We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the
open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit," a Google
spokesperson told eWEEK.
"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."
Oracle
sued Google Aug. 12, alleging the company
infringed on seven patents and other copyrights related to Java. Oracle
acquired thousands of Java-related patents through its $5.6 billion purchase of
Sun Microsystems, later renamed Oracle America.
Android includes Java applications running on a Java-based application
framework and core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine.
According to the
suit, "Google actively distributes Android (including
without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and
promotes its use by manufacturers of products and
applications."
Android is wildly successful, shipping in 200,000 smartphones per day.
Android-based smartphones
outsold Apple's popular iPhone in units shipped for the
second quarter, according to Nielsen and others.
Despite negotiations, Google did not have a licensing agreement with Sun for
Java, but Sun let Google slide. Oracle revived talks after acquiring Sun but discussions
broke down after the two parties couldn't agree on licensing fees, according to
the
Wall Street Journal.
For that reason, Oracle is suing to enjoin Google from facilitating Android
development and is seeking damages because it claims Google engineers were
aware of the patents.
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