Trial has begun in a San Francisco court in the US over Oracle’s patent infringement lawsuit against Google.
Oracle alleged that Google misused its Java application programming interfaces (APIs) in software Google developed for its mobile device operating system, Android which powers more than 150 million devices.
The company is claiming nearly $1bn in damages from Google.
The trial will be conducted in three phases and should last about eight weeks.
In a complaint on August 12, 2010, the Java developer said Google copied the design specifications of at least 37 APIs for Java’s core libraries into Android’s core libraries.
However, Google denied the claims saying that it has not violated Oracle’s patents and Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java.
Oracle said, "Because Android exploits Java but is not fully compatible with it, Android represents Sun’s, and now Oracle’s, nightmare: an incompatible forking of the Java platform, which undermines the fundamental ‘write once, run anywhere’ premise of Java that is so critical to its value and appeal."
Oracle also made copyright infringement claims against the search engine company.
Google denied the claims and following the US Patent and Trademark Office’s re-examination of Oracle’s patents, the latter had to withdraw a number of its patent claims.
Now only two patents remain in lawsuit, along with a number of Java copyright claims.
Oracle got the rights to Java when it acquired Sun Microsystems for $7.3bn in January 2010 and Sun’s Java platform is used a standard software interface across all operating systems, allowing developers to write applications which can be run on any system.
